“Yes, it is,” freely replied Arthur. “However, sir, to return to the question. I shall be glad to help you, if you have no one better at hand. I could devote several hours a day to it, and you know that I am thoroughly to be trusted with the work. I might take some home now.” “Home!” returned Mr. Galloway. “Did you mean that you could do it at home?” “Certainly, sir; I did not think of doing it here,” was the pointed reply of Arthur. “I can do it at home just as well as I could here; perhaps better, for I should shut myself up alone, and there would be nothing to interrupt me, or to draw off my attention.” It cannot be denied that this was a most welcome proposition to Mr. Galloway; indeed, his thoughts had turned to Arthur from the first. Arthur would be far better than a strange clerk, looked for and brought in on the spur of the moment--one who might answer well or answer badly, according to chance. Yet that such must have been his resource, Mr. Galloway knew. “It will be an accommodation to me, your taking part of the work,” he frankly said. “But you had better come to the office and do it.” “No, sir; I would rather--” “Do, Channing!” cried out Roland Yorke, springing up as if he were electrified. “The office will be bearable if you come back again.” “I would prefer to do it at home, sir,” continued Arthur to Mr. Galloway, while that gentleman pointed imperiously to Yorke, as a hint to him to hold his tongue and mind his own business. “You _may_ come back here and do it,” said Mr. Galloway. “Thank you, I cannot come back,” was the reply of Arthur. “Of course you can’t!” said angry Roland, who cared less for Mr. Galloway’s displeasure than he did for displaying his own feelings when they were aroused. “You won’t, you mean! I’d not show myself such a duffer as you, Channing, if I were paid for it in gold!” “You’ll get paid in something, presently, Roland Yorke, but it won’t be in gold!” reproved Mr. Galloway. “You will do a full day’s work to-day, sir, if you stop here till twelve o’clock at night.” “Oh, of course I expect to do that, sir,” retorted Roland, tartly. “Considering what’s before me, on this desk and on Jenkins’s, there’s little prospect of my getting home on this side four in the morning. They needn’t sit up for me--I can go in with the milk. I wonder who invented writing? I wish I had the fingering of him just now!” Arthur turned to the parchments. He was almost as much at home with them as Jenkins. Mr. Galloway selected two that were most pressing, and gave them to him, with the requisite materials for copying. “You will keep them secure, you know,” he remarked. “Perfectly so, sir; I shall sit quite alone.”