So, without a friend in the world, I wandered still further away from the town in which I was born. I tarried here and tarried there, and found no rest for the sole of my foot until I reached a city where, before my means were exhausted, I obtained employment in the office of an accountant. It was by the merest chance that I obtained the situation, for there were many applicants; but I was quick at figures, and that quality served me. The position was not a distinguished one; I was not destined to occupy it long, however, for being coldly interested in my work--simply because it enabled me to live--I performed the tasks set for me to do, not only expeditiously, but with the exactitude of a machine. This was precisely what was required of me, and I rose into favour with my employer. Some of the clients who came to us for advice in their difficulties were afflicted with a kind of moral disease, which for their credits' sake it was necessary should not be exposed to the world. It was not the business of our office to be nice as to our clients' honesty and integrity, and it did not trouble me to see rogues walking about in broadcloth. It was of a piece with the rest. Many delicate matters of figures were intrusted to me; my lonely habits, my reserved manner, and the circumstance of my having no connections or friends, were high recommendations, and I heard my employer say, more than once, to his clients, 'Mr. Carey is as secret as the grave; you may confide anything to him.' No wonder, therefore, that in the course of years I became manager of the business. I began to save money, simply because I was earning more than I required for my necessities. I had no extravagances, I never went into society, and I did not see that any pleasure was to be derived from following the ordinary pursuits of men of my own age. I set down a rigid course of life for myself, and I spent my leisure in solitude; walked and read and lived entirely in myself. One fancy alone I indulged in; I loved flowers, and I made them my companions. An occupation of some kind for my leisure was forced upon me, I suppose, by natural necessity; the mind, if its balance is to be maintained, must have something to feed upon, and I tended my flowers and watched them through their various stages with much interest; I had, and have a real affection for them. Every year that passed fixed my habits more firmly, and I had no desire to change them. Apart from my mute and beautiful friends, life was tasteless for me; there was no sweetness in it that I could see. It consisted of dull plodding day after day, of growing older day after day. I reflected upon it with scornful curiosity, and made myself, as it were, a text for speculative commentary. I knew what would be the end of it: in the natural order of things I should live until I grew old, when, in the natural order of things, I should die and pass away, fading into absolute nothingness--that was all. It seemed to me a poor affair, so