"Certainly," said Jim, "you needn't have lived to this time of life to have made that discovery; and speaking of that, reminds me that the little widow is as poor as Job's turkey. My washerwoman, confound her for ironing off my shirt-buttons, says that she wears her clothes rough-dry, because she can't afford to pay for both washing and ironing." "She does?" replied Sam; "she'll get tired of that after awhile. I shall request 'the dragon,' to-morrow, to let me sit next her at the table. I'll begin by helping the children, offering to cut up their victuals, and all that sort of thing--that will please the mother, you know; hey? But, by Jove! it's three o'clock, and I engaged to drive a gen'lemen down to the steamboat landing; now some other hackney coach will get the job. Confound it!" CHAPTER XXXVII. Counting houses, like all other spots beyond the pale of female jurisdiction, are comfortless looking places. The counting-room of Mr. Tom Develin was no exception to the above rule; though we will do him the justice to give in our affidavit, that the ink-stand, for seven consecutive years, had stood precisely in the same spot, bounded on the north by a box of letter stamps, on the south by a package of brown business envelopes, on the east by a pen wiper, made originally in the form of a butterfly, but which frequent ink dabs had transmuted into a speckled caterpillar, on the west by half sheets of blank paper, rescued economically from business letters, to save too prodigal consumption of foolscap. It is unnecessary to add that Mr. Tom Develin was a bachelor; perpendicular as a ram-rod, moving over _terra firma_ as if fearful his joints would unhinge, or his spinal column slip into his boots; carrying his _arms_ with military precision; supporting his ears with a collar, never known by 'the oldest inhabitant' to be limpsey; and stepping circumspectly in boots of mirror-like brightness, never defiled with the mud of the world. Perched on his apple-sized head, over plastered wind-proof locks, was the shiniest of hats, its wearer turning neither to the right nor the left; and, although possessed of a looking-glass, laboring under the hallucination that _he_, of all masculine moderns, was most dangerous to the female heart. Mr. Develin's book store was on the west side of Literary Row. His windows were adorned with placards of new theological publications of the blue-school order, and engravings of departed saints, who with their last breath had, with mock humility, requested brother somebody to write their obituaries. There was, also, to be seen there an occasional oil painting "for sale," selected by Mr. Develin himself, with a peculiar eye to the greenness of the trees, the blueness of the sky, and the moral "tone" of the picture.