occasions, that the elongation, or at least the whole extent of it,
would pass unobserved; and, in general, to gain time, any waste ends of
five minutes or quarter hours, on all possible occasions. If the reader
calls this shirking and robbery, he must. Technically, no doubt, it was;
but these clerks, without so formulating it, merely exercised the right
of all oppressed beings liberally to interpret to their own advantage,
where possible, the terms of an unjust contract which grinding economic
conditions had compelled them to make. They had been forced to promise
too much in exchange for too little, and they equalised the disparity
where they could.

Whether they spent the time thus hoarded in a profitable fashion, is a
question of personal definition. It was usually expended in companies of
twos or threes, with a pipe and a pot of beer and much spirited talk, in
the warm corners of adjacent taverns; and, so long as you don't drink
too much, there has perhaps been invented none pleasanter than that
old-fashioned way of spending an hour. Certainly, it was the way for ale
to taste good, and a pipe to seem the most satisfying of all earthly
consolations. It was almost worth the bondage to enjoy the keen relish
of the escape.

By degrees, though the youngest there, Henry came to be allowed a
certain leadership in these sorties of the human element. He made it his
business to stimulate these unthrifty instincts, and to fan the welcome
sparks of natural idleness; and so successfully that at times there
seemed to have entered with him into that gloomy place a certain Bacchic
influence, which now and again would prompt his comrades to such daring
clutches of animated release, that the spirit of it even pervaded the
penetralia of the senior partner's office, with the result that some
mishap of truancy would undo the genial work of months, and precipitate