Then, striding off, he went into his glass case, while Jem Smith, in a compartment at the end of an avenue of cases, began to brush some long lengths of type, and whenever I glanced at him, he shook his fist, as he showed his inflamed eyes red with crying and his face blackened by contact with his dirty hands. My protector, Mr Hallett, had left me at once, and I saw no more of him for some time, as I worked away, sorry at having been the innocent means of getting him into a quarrel. At last, just as I was very intent in puzzling out the difference between _p's_ and _q's_ I started, for the great lubberly boy came up close behind me. "I'll give you a warming when you goes out to dinner, see if I don't," he whispered; but he shuffled off directly, as Mr Hallett came towards me, saw that I was busy, and after giving me a friendly nod, went back, leaving his calm, strangely stern face so impressed upon me, that I kept finding myself thinking of him, his eyes seeming to stare at me from out of every box. But still I worked on, feeling each moment more and more sure of my way, and at last in a fit of enterprise I set to work and managed to find the letters forming my own name, and laid them side by side. I felt no little nervous dread as dinner-time approached, for Jem Smith's warming was in waiting; but as one o'clock struck, Mr Hallett came up to me while the other men were hurrying off, and said kindly: "Did that boy threaten you?" "He--he said something, sir," I replied, hesitating. "I thought so. He's gone now, so don't go out to dinner, my man. I can give you a little of mine. I'll speak to him before you go to-night." CHAPTER EIGHTEEN. MY FRIEND JEM SMITH MAKES ME AMBITIOUS. I was receiving my first lessons in the fact that there is as much good-will as ill-will in the world--in other words, that there really is, as has been so poetically expressed, a silver lining to every cloud; and I gladly availed myself of Mr Hallett's kind offer, following him to his frame, as they called the skeleton desks that supported the cases, and there sitting down close by him to partake of some bread and meat which he brought out carefully wrapped in a clean white napkin. "Don't be afraid, my boy," he said, "make a good meal; and I should advise you, for the present, to bring your dinner with you and eat it here. Better than going into the streets." He then ate his own dinner quickly, and without taking the slightest notice of me beyond seeing once that I had a sufficiency of the bread and meat, but took out an oblong memorandum-book, and began busily drawing and making some calculation.