The room was empty. The walls had been covered once with a brown-flowered paper which now hung from them in great patches, showing the green mold beneath. Under the black marble mantelpiece, thickly covered with white dust, was a grate piled high with ashes; ash-heaps stood also out on the floor, flanked with empty black bottles and broken remnants of furniture. In the background was a hideous black haircloth sofa. Heaven only knows with what past it had been associated to give that creeping feeling in the veins of the sober and practical man who gazed at it; it seemed the outward and visible sign of ruin. The unseen and abnormal still keeps its irrelevant and unexplained hold on the human intelligence, with no respect of persons. It gave Justin a momentary chill to think of passing this each day. Then he looked up, half turning as he felt that some one was observing him, and met the eye of a man who was walking on the other side of the street; he remembered suddenly that they had been almost keeping pace together since he had turned into this street from Broadway. The smile of this unknown foot-farer spoke of a conscious comradeship which surprised Justin, who held himself a little more stiffly and hurried forward at a quicker pace to reach his destination, which was now in sight. His eye approved the new paint and the air of decent reserve which appertained to the building; the new sign at the side of the hallway bore the legend of the typometer, with his name conspicuously above. As Justin entered he turned again involuntarily, and the man on the other side of the street, who was himself on the point of entering a hallway, turned also. This time Justin smiled in response. The opposite building, as he knew, bore a sign much resembling his own, with the name of Angevin L. Cater upon it; the air of proprietorship bespoke Mr. Cater himself. The meeting gave a welcome pleasure to rivalry, and brought back the dew of the morning. The offices were in the second story, his own especial one railed off near the front windows and covered with a new green rug. To one side were the compartments of his subordinates and the open desk-room of the lower clerks; beyond these was the packing department of the factory; from above was heard the ceaseless whirring and clicking of machinery. The larger parts of the instrument—the copper tubing and the steel bars—were bought in the rough, so to speak, and shaped to their proper functions here, where, also, the more intricate portions were manufactured.