celestial dial.

In very marked contrast with this young man is the something more than
middle-aged Register of Deeds, a rusty, sallow, smoke-dried looking
personage, who belongs to this earth as exclusively as the other belongs
to the firmament. His movements are as mechanical as those of a
pendulum,--to the office, where he changes his coat and plunges into
messuages and building-lots; then, after changing his coat again, back to
our table, and so, day by day, the dust of years gradually gathering
around him as it does on the old folios that fill the shelves all round
the great cemetery of past transactions of which he is the sexton.

Of the Salesman who sits next him, nothing need be said except that he is
good-looking, rosy, well-dressed, and of very polite manners, only a
little more brisk than the approved style of carriage permits, as one in
the habit of springing with a certain alacrity at the call of a customer.

You would like to see, I don't doubt, how we sit at the table, and I will
help you by means of a diagram which shows the present arrangement of our
seats.

4 3 2 1 14 13
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5 | O Breakfast-Table O |12
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| O O O O O O |
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