Bellair’s present devil was a kind of inertia. Granting that the Unknowable had been charged with periods of intense action of several kinds, the recent half-decade might be regarded as its reflex condition. There is an ebb and flow to all things, and it is easier to adjust Bellair’s years at Lot & Company as a sort of resting period for his faculties, than to accept a constitutional inertia in his case, for subsequent events do not quite bear that out. He doubtless belonged to that small class of down town men who do their work well enough, but without passion, who have faced the modern world and its need of bread and cake, and who have compromised, giving hours in exchange for essential commodities, but nothing like the full energies of their lives. It is a way beset with pitfalls, but the unavoidable result of a system that multiplies products and profits and minimizes the chances for fine workmanship on every hand. Moreover in Bellair’s case there is a philosophical detachment to be considered. The aims and purports of the printing establishment were coldly and absolutely material. These did not challenge him to any fine or full expenditure of his powers; and if he had touched that higher zone of philosophy which makes a consecration of the simplest and the heaviest tasks, he had at least found it impracticable to make it work among the systems of Lot & Company’s business. The two years or more since he was made assistant cashier had brought many further items and exhibits. He was now used on the left hand side of the throne, developed in the darkness-department already overworked, the eye of which was Mr. Seth and the hand, Mr. Sproxley. For as yet Bellair believed that even Eben Wetherbee had only suspicions. This was the bite of the whole drama. There were men in the building who would have died for their conviction that the House was honest. You might have told these men that Lot & Company was a morgue of conservatism; that having existed under a certain policy for seventy-five years, was the chief reason for its changing; that free, unhampered genius never found utterance through that House--and any of a dozen clerks would have laughed, spoken proudly of unerring dividends and uncanny stability, granting the rest. But that Lot & Company was structurally crooked was incredible except to the few who performed the trick. Bellair knew, for instance, that his best friend in the office, Broadwell, head of the advertising, was innocent.... Monday passed without his giving notice. He quailed before the questions that would be asked. If it were not for the one thousand dollars, he would have escaped with a mere “Good-night,” though a panic would have started until the Company was assured of the innocence of his departure. As for a panic, Lot & Company had that coming, he thought. Now he knew that he would not be able to get his surety-deposit until all was made certain in his regard by the firm....