When expenses were coming upon him thick and fast, Marks sought out some night employment. A tradesman in the neighbourhood--Pimlico--a butterman doing a flourishing business, advertised for a book-keeper to attend two or three hours in the evening. James Marks presented himself and was engaged. It had to be done in secrecy, lest offence should be taken at head-quarters. Had the little man in the chestnut wig heard of it, he might have objected to his clerk keeping any books but his own. Shut up in the butterman's small back-closet that he called his counting-house, Mr. Marks could be as private as need be. So there he was! After coming home from his day's toil, instead of taking recreation, the home-sitting with his wife, or the stroll in the summer weather, in place of throwing work to the winds and giving his brain rest, James Marks, after snatching a meal, tea and supper combined, went forth to work again, to weary his eyes with more figures and his head with casting them up. He generally managed to get home by eleven except on Saturday; but the day's work was too much for any man. Better for him (could he have pocketed pride, and gained over Brown and Co.) that he had hired himself to stand behind the evening counter and serve out the butter and cheese to the customers. It would at least have been a relief from the accounts. And so the years had gone on. A portion of the wife's letter to Mrs. Todhetley had run as follows: "Thank you very much for your kind inquiries after my husband, and for your hope that he is not overworking himself. _He is._ But I suppose I must have said something about it in my last letter (I am ashamed to remember that it was written two years ago!) that induced you to refer to it. That he is overworking himself I have known for a long time: and things that he has said lately have tended to alarm me. He speaks of sometimes getting confused in the head. In the midst of a close calculation he will suddenly seem to lose himself--lose memory and figures and all, and then he has to leave off for some minutes, close his eyes, and keep perfectly still, or else leave his stool and take a few turns up and down the room. Another thing he mentions--that the figures dance before his eyes in bed at night, and he is adding them up in his brain as if it were daytime and reality. It is very evident to me that he wants change and rest." "And what a foolish fellow he must have been not to take it before this!" cried the Squire, commenting on parts of the letter, while Mrs. Todhetley wrote. "Perhaps that is what he has not been able to do, sir," I said. "Not able! Why, what d'ye mean, Johnny?" "It is difficult for a banker's clerk to get holiday. Their work has to go on all the same." "Difficult! when a man's powers are breaking down! D'ye think bankers are made of flint and steel, not to give their clerks holiday when it is needed? Don't you talk nonsense, Johnny Ludlow."