Lemuel had to be up early in the morning to get the bills of fare, which Mrs. Harmon called the Meanyous, written in time for the seven o'clock breakfasters; and after opening the dining-room doors with fit ceremony, he had to run backward and forward to answer the rings at the elevator, and to pull out the chairs for the ladies at the table, and slip them back under them as they sat down. The ladies at the St. Albans expected to get their money's worth; but their exactions in most things were of use to Lemuel. He grew constantly nimbler of hand and foot under them, and he grew quicker-witted; he ceased to hulk in mind and body. He did not employ this new mental agility in devising excuses and delays; he left that to Mrs. Harmon, whose conscience was easy in it; but from seven o'clock in the morning till eleven at night, when the ladies came in from the theatre, he was so promptly, so comfortingly at their service, that they all said they did not see how they had ever got along without him. His activities took the form of interruptions rather than constant occupation, and he found a good deal of broken-up time on his hands, which he passed in reading, and in reveries of Statira. At the hours when the elevator was mostly in use he kept a book in it with him, and at other times he had it in the office, as Mrs. Harmon called his little booth. He remained there reading every night after the house quieted down after dinner, until it was time to lock up for the night; and several times Mr. Evans stopped and looked in at him where he sat in the bad combustion of the gas that was taking the country tan out of his cheeks. One night when he came in late, and Lemuel put his book down to take him up in the elevator, he said, “Don't disturb yourself; I'm going to walk up,” but he lingered at the door looking in with the queer smile that always roused the ladies' fears of tacit ridicule. “I suppose you don't find it necessary,” he said finally, “to chase a horse-car now, when you want to find your way to a given point?” Lemuel reddened and dropped his head; he had already recognised in Mr. Evans the gentleman from whose kindly curiosity he had turned, that first day, in the suspicion that he might be a beat. “No,” he said, “I guess I can go pretty near everywhere in Boston now.” “Well,” said Mr. Evans, “it was an ingenious system. How do you like Boston?” “I like it first-rate, but I've not seen many other places,” answered Lemuel cautiously. “Well, if you live here long enough you won't care to see any other places; you'll know they're not worth seeing.” Lemuel looked up as if he did not understand exactly, and Mr. Evans stepped in and lifted the book he had been reading. It was one he had bought at second hand while he was with Miss Vane: a tough little epitome of the philosophies in all times, the crabbed English version of a dry German original. Mr. Evans turned its leaves over. “Do you find it a very exciting story?” he asked.