Ephraim Judd was twenty years younger than his fellow-clerk. Mr. Avison the elder had brought him to the Bank when a boy, and there he had been ever since. He was lame, the result of an accident in childhood, and he made use of a stout stick when walking to and from business, although he never seemed to need it when passing from one part of the Bank to another, but got over the ground with a sort of hop and skip which had rather a comical effect in the eyes of strangers. He was a tall, narrow-chested young man, with long, straight, black hair, a sallow complexion, and thin, eager, hungry-looking features. His ears were abnormally large and stuck out prominently from his head, and it was a matter of common report among his fellow clerks that Ephraim could move them backward or forward, after the fashion of certain animals, at will. Like John Brancker, he dressed very plainly, almost shabbily, presenting thereby a marked contrast to some of the juniors, with their chains and rings and elaborate display of collar and cuffs. Mr. Judd's chest was delicate, and when the weather was at all bad he wore a respirator, and at other times he generally muffled himself up carefully about the throat in a long, worsted comforter of many colors. It might be for the same reason, perhaps, that he nearly always wore india rubber overshoes; but that could hardly be the reason why his stick should be shod with the same material. By means of his galoshes Ephraim was enabled to move noiselessly about from place to place, and he sometimes quite startled Sweet, who was pursy and scant of breath, by going up behind him and touching him suddenly on the shoulder when he had no idea that anyone was near him. "Drat that Mr. Judd with his ingy-rubber shoes!" the night-watchman would say to his wife. "I wish he wouldn't shake one's narves so. He steals about the building like a ghost, or--or as if he was going to commit a burglary; and one never knows whether he's behind one, or in front of one, or where he is." It was somewhat singular that Ephraim should be so little of a favorite among his fellow clerks--but so it was. He was a man not much given to talking; he kept his own counsel, making friends of nobody, giving offence to none, and seemingly trying to efface himself as much as possible; yet everybody seemed to have a vague distrust of him; everybody had the feeling that he was a man who hid more than he showed on the surface--everybody, that is, except simple-hearted John Brancker, who was proud of Ephraim's cleverness at figures, and proud of his handwriting, which was the best of anyone's in the Bank. Sweet put his head into the office where the two men were at work. "Mr. Hazeldine has come, sir," he said, addressing himself to Mr. Brancker. "I thought you might perhaps have something you wanted to see him about." "I don't think I shall trouble him to-night," answered John; "he will be tired, and what matters I have to see him about will keep till morning."