“'L' onda che mormora, Fra sponda e sponda, L' aura che tremola, Fra fronda e fronda.” “Raper, Raper,--do you hear me, I say?” cried Fagan, as he knocked angrily with his knuckles on the table. “We are sorry, Miss Fagan,” interposed Crowther, “to interrupt such intellectual pleasure, but business has its imperative claims.” “I 'm ready--quite ready, sir,” said Joe, rising in confusion, and hastening across the room to where the others sat. “Take a seat, sir,” said Fagan, peremptorily; “for here are some points which require full explanation. And I would beg to remind you that if the cultivation of your mind, as I have heard it called, interferes with your attention to office duties, it would be as well to seek out some more congenial sphere for its development than my humble house. I'm too poor a man for such luxurious dalliance, Mr. Raper.” These words, although spoken in a whisper, were audible to him to whom they were addressed, and he heard them in a state of half-stupefied amazement. “For the present, I must call your attention to this. What is it?” Raper was no sooner in the midst of figures and calculations than all his instincts of office-life recalled him to himself, and he began rapidly but clearly to explain the strange and confused-looking documents which were strewn before him, and Crowther could not but feel struck by the admirable memory and systematic precision which alone could derive information from such disorderly materials. Even Fagan himself was so carried away by a momentary impulse of enthusiasm as to say, “When a man is capable of such a statement at this, what a disgrace that he should fritter away his faculties with rhymes and legends!” “Mr. Raper is a philosopher, sir; he despises the base pursuits and grovelling ambitions of us lower mortals,” said Crowther, with a well-feigned humility. “We must beg of him to lay aside his philosophy, then, for this evening, for there is much to be done yet,” said Fagan, untying a large bundle of letters. “This is the correspondence of the last year,--the most important of all.” “Large sums! large sums, these!” said Crowther, glancing his eyes over the papers. “You appear to have placed a most unlimited confidence in this young gentleman,--a very well merited trust, I have no doubt.” Fagan made no reply, but a slight contortion of his mouth and eyebrows seemed to offer some dissent to the doctrine. “I have kept the tea waiting for you, Papa Joe,” said Polly, who took the opportunity of a slight pause to address him; and Raper, like an escaped schoolboy, burst away from his task at a word. “I have just remembered another instance, Polly,” said he, “of what we were speaking; it occurs in Schiller,-- “'Es bricht sich die Wellen mit Macht--mit Macht.'” “Take your books to your room, Polly,” said Fagan, harshly; “for I see that as long as they are here, we have little chance of Mr. Raper's services.”