alcoves, rows on rows, shelves on shelves, with the exactest system
everywhere prevailing, with the attendants moving about in list-bottomed
shoes, fulfilling without the least hesitation or mistake the multitude
of directions from the central desk. It is like an admirably drilled
army, where there is the nice balance of freedom and discipline that
gives mobility without confusion; the divisions, down to files and even
units, can be disposed along the line of battle wherever needed, or can
be marshaled in reserve for use at the proper moment. Such a mind may be
used for good purpose or bad--or for mixed purposes, after the usual
fashion in human action. But whatever the service to which it is put, it
acts with equal energy and precision. Character--that is a thing apart.
The character determines the morality of action; but only the intellect
determines the skill of action.

In the offices of that great law firm one of the keenest pleasures of
the more intelligent of the staff was watching the workings of Frederick
Norman's mind--its ease of movement, its quickness and accuracy, its
obedience to the code of mental habits he had fixed for himself. In
large part all this was born with the man; but it had been brought to a
state of perfection by the most painful labor, by the severest
discipline, by years of practice of the sacrifice of small
temptations--temptations to waste time and strength on the little
pleasant things which result in such heavy bills--bills that bankrupt a
man in middle life and send him in old age into the deserts of poverty
and contempt.

Such an unique and trivial request as that of Josephine Burroughs being
wholly out of his mental habit for down town, he forgot it along with
everything else having to do with uptown only--along with Josephine
herself, to tell a truth which may pique the woman reader and may be