He could do nothing now. He was annoyed with Lowndes, and yet the man meant well--by Harry, at all events Others might take him as they found him, and call him a scamp if they chose. Very possibly he was one; indeed, on his own showing, in his own stories, he was nothing else. But he had a kind heart, and Harry's needs and rebuffs inclined him to rate a sympathetic rogue far higher in the moral scale than a callous paragon. Whatever else might be said of Lowndes, there was no end to the trouble he would take for another. Even when he insisted on doing what the person most concerned would have had him leave undone (as in this instance), it was impossible not to feel grateful to him for doing anything at all. His unselfish enthusiasm in other people's causes was beyond all praise. He might not be a good man, but that was a virtue which many a good man had not. Still Harry was annoyed. What Gordon Lowndes had gone to say to Wintour Phipps he could only conjecture; but the object was plainly intercessory, and Harry hated the thought of such intercession on his behalf. There was nothing for it, however, but to climb upstairs again (he had done so), and patiently to await the return of Lowndes. So the afternoon passed. Mr. Backhouse stumped in, took his hat off, wrote letters, reached his hat, and stumped out again. But still no Lowndes. "Good-night," said Harry to the retreating Bacchus. "Oh, I'm not going--I shall be back directly," replied that methodical man. "I have a little business down below." And he was back in ten minutes, sucking his moustache, and followed almost immediately by Gordon Lowndes, who stalked into the room with an air which Harry had not before seen him affect. His triumph was self-evident, but it was beautifully suppressed. He put down his hat with exasperating deliberation, and then stood beaming at Harry through his glasses. "Well?" said Harry. "It's all right," said Lowndes, very quietly, as of a foregone conclusion: "you may start work to-morrow, Ringrose. Our friend Phipps will be only too glad to have you. He will pay for the stamps for your articles, and, so far from charging you a premium, he will give you a small salary from the beginning. It won't be much, but then articled clerks as a rule get nothing. Our friend Phipps is going to make an exception in your case--and just you let me know when he treats you again as he did this afternoon. He never will! You'll find him tame enough now. You're to go to him again to-morrow morning; and you see if he don't receive you with open arms!" "But why?" cried Harry. "What have you said?"