“Oh--er--never mind. There’s another matter, Netherby.... It’s some years since I started this sorry venture in this office.” He sighed, and passed his hand over his forehead wearily--“more years than I care to remember. You, the office-boy, were a lank lad of thirteen--I a young man, full of literary enthusiasms.... I tried to sell the public artistic wares”--he shrugged his shoulders--“tried to show them vital things--real things, instead of sham--tried to encourage promising youth”--he laughed sadly--“and a nice waste-paper basket we’ve made of it!” He swung his foot and kicked the waste-paper basket into the middle of the room, sending its contents flying over the floor. Netherby Gomme coughed: “Yes, sir,” said he, “a great deal of the promise of youth goes into the waste-paper basket.” Anthony Baddlesmere laughed uncomfortably; the laugh died out of his eyes, obliterated by a frown: “Downstairs,” he went on, as though repeating an unpleasant task he had set himself--“downstairs they have given the public trash--cheap. And I have lost.... In me the literary enthusiasm, a little chilled, perhaps, remains; but the youth has gone. As for you--you are office-boy still, to all purposes, and lank still--but, lord! how you have grown!” Netherby Gomme looked down at his scanty trousers and sighed: “Yes, sir, I _have_ grown.” “H’m! like a scandal,” said Baddlesmere; and a gleam of merriment shot into his eyes, ran round the corners of his mouth, and vanished. “Gomme,” said he, “we are at the end of our resources. This is our last week in these rooms.... The office is bare--my home is bare. All my money--all my wife’s literary success--all have gone to feed the printing machine. It’s great inky maw has swallowed everything.... However, there is no debt--except to you. But that is a heavy one. My conscience tells me that you ought not to have been allowed to remain here and share in the collapse; you ought to have been promoted--to have been sent to--to----” He hesitated--stopped. “Where, sir?” asked the yellow-haired youth. The bald fact was that Baddlesmere had never given the matter a thought until this disaster was upon him. He smiled sadly, and added vaguely: “No place would have been good enough for you, Gomme.... You should have been promoted long ago....” He roused and faced the position boldly: “But you have been such a good friend to me and to the boy--so useful a part of this office, that I am afraid I have treated you like a part of myself, and have come by habit to think the hat that covered my head covered yours.... Dame Fortune has knocked the hat off--and I find there were two heads inside it.” “Well, sir, we can look her in the face without the hat.” “Yes, yes, Gomme--but I have looked over your head.” “It has saved your eyes from the commonplace, sir, and my heart from a bad chill. I wouldn’t have missed the past years in this office for a fortune.” “No, no, Gomme; nor I--nor I.”