"He must be writing his love-letters. Go in there, Hartley, and help him
out. You're an adept at that," hazarded the youngster at the window to
the dapper youth at the mirror.

There was a subdued explosion from all the others but Clark, after
which, as if relieved by this escape of steam, the young men quieted
down, and once more applied themselves to looking moodily out of the
windows, whilst the older clerk gave a secret peep at his watch, and
then, after another glance at the closed door of the private office,
went back once more to his work.

Meantime, within his closed sanctum Livingstone still sat with intent
gaze, poring over the page of figures before him. The expression on his
face was one of profound satisfaction. He had at last reached the acme
of his ambition--that is, of his later ambition. (He had once had other
aims.) He had arrived at the point towards which he had been straining
for the last eight--ten--fifteen years--he did not try to remember just
how long--it had been a good while. He had at length accumulated, "on
the most conservative estimate" (he framed the phrase in his mind,
following the habit of his Boards)--he had no need to look now at the
page before him: the seven figures that formed the balance, as he
thought of them, suddenly appeared before him in facsimile. He had been
gazing at them so steadily that now even when he shut his eyes he could
see them clearly. It gave him a little glow about his heart;--it was
quite convenient: he could always see them.

It was a great sum. He had attained his ambition.

Last year when he balanced his books at the close of the year, he had