At five minutes past ten a youth entered with the "Times" under his arm. Richard waited for him to speak, but he merely stared and took off his overcoat. Then he said,-- "You've got my hook. If you don't mind I'll put your things on this other one." "Certainly," assented Richard. The youth spread his back luxuriously to the empty fireplace and opened the "Times," when another and smaller boy put his head in at the door. "Jenkins, Mr. Alder wants the 'Times.'" The youth silently handed over the advertisement pages which were lying on the table. In a minute the boy returned. "Mr. Alder says he wants the inside of the 'Times.'" "Tell Mr. Alder to go to hell, with my compliments." The boy hesitated. "Go on, now," Jenkins insisted. The boy hung on the door-handle, smiling dubiously, and then went out. "Here, wait a minute!" Jenkins called him back. "Perhaps you'd better give it him. Take the damn thing away." A sound of hurried footsteps in the next room was succeeded by an imperious call for Jenkins, at which Jenkins slipped nimbly into his chair and untied a bundle of papers. "Jenkins!" the call came again, with a touch of irritation in it, but Jenkins did not move. The door was thrust open. "Oh! You are there, Jenkins. Just come in and take a letter down." The tones were quite placid. "Yes, Mr. Smythe." "I never take any notice of Smythe's calls," said Jenkins, when he returned. "If he wants me, he must either ring or fetch me. If I once began it, I should be running in and out of his room all day, and I've quite enough to do without that." "Fidgety, eh?" Richard suggested. "Fidgety's no word for it, _I_ tell you. Alder--that's the manager, you know--said only yesterday that he has less trouble with forty Chancery actions of Curpet's than with one county-court case of Smythe's. I know I'd a jolly sight sooner write forty of Curpet's letters than ten of Smythe's. I wish I'd got your place, and you'd got mine. I suppose you can write shorthand rather fast." "Middling," said Richard. "About 120." "Oh! We had a man once who could do 150, but he'd been a newspaper reporter. I do a bit over a hundred, if I've not had much to drink overnight. Let's see, they're giving you twenty-five bob, aren't they?" Richard nodded. "The man before you had thirty-five, and he couldn't spell worth a brass button. I only get fifteen, although I've been here seven years. A damn shame I call it! But Curpet's beastly near. If he'd give some other people less, and me a bit more...." "Who are 'some other people'?" asked Richard, smiling.