as seriously disturbed for the remainder of the twenty-four hours. Not
that he was absolutely idle, or averse to business then; far from it.
The difficulty was, he was apt to be altogether too energetic. There
was a strange, inflamed, flurried, flighty recklessness of activity
about him. He would be incautious in dipping his pen into his inkstand.
All his blots upon my documents, were dropped there after twelve
o'clock, meridian. Indeed, not only would he be reckless and sadly
given to making blots in the afternoon, but some days he went further,
and was rather noisy. At such times, too, his face flamed with
augmented blazonry, as if cannel coal had been heaped on anthracite. He
made an unpleasant racket with his chair; spilled his sand-box; in
mending his pens, impatiently split them all to pieces, and threw them
on the floor in a sudden passion; stood up and leaned over his table,
boxing his papers about in a most indecorous manner, very sad to behold
in an elderly man like him. Nevertheless, as he was in many ways a most
valuable person to me, and all the time before twelve o'clock, meridian,
was the quickest, steadiest creature too, accomplishing a great deal of
work in a style not easy to be matched--for these reasons, I was willing
to overlook his eccentricities, though indeed, occasionally, I
remonstrated with him. I did this very gently, however, because, though
the civilest, nay, the blandest and most reverential of men in the
morning, yet in the afternoon he was disposed, upon provocation, to be
slightly rash with his tongue, in fact, insolent. Now, valuing his
morning services as I did, and resolved not to lose them; yet, at the
same time made uncomfortable by his inflamed ways after twelve o'clock;
and being a man of peace, unwilling by my admonitions to call forth
unseemly retorts from him; I took upon me, one Saturday noon (he was
always worse on Saturdays), to hint to him, very kindly, that perhaps
now that he was growing old, it might be well to abridge his labors; in
short, he need not come to my chambers after twelve o'clock, but, dinner