The second was a small man--also a Scotchman. It is curious to note
how numerous Scotchmen are in the wilds of North America. This
specimen was diminutive and sharp. Moreover, he played the flute--an
accomplishment of which he was so proud that he ordered out from
England a flute of ebony, so elaborately enriched with silver keys
that one's fingers ached to behold it. This beautiful instrument,
like most other instruments of a delicate nature, found the climate
too much for its constitution, and, soon after the winter began,
split from top to bottom. Peter Mactavish, however, was a genius by
nature, and a mechanical genius by tendency; so that, instead of
giving way to despair, he laboriously bound the flute together with
waxed thread, which, although it could not restore it to its pristine
elegance, enabled him to play with great effect sundry doleful airs,
whose influence, when performed at night, usually sent his companions
to sleep, or, failing this, drove them to distraction.

The third inhabitant of the office was a ruddy, smooth-chinned youth
of about fourteen, who had left home seven months before, in the hope
of gratifying a desire to lead a wild life, which he had entertained
ever since he read "Jack the Giant Killer," and found himself most
unexpectedly fastened, during the greater part of each day, to a
stool. His name was Harry Somerville, and a fine, cheerful little
fellow he was, full of spirits, and curiously addicted to poking and
arranging the fire at least every ten minutes--a propensity which
tested the forbearance of the senior clerk rather severely, and would
have surprised any one not aware of poor Harry's incurable antipathy
to the desk, and the yearning desire with which he longed for
physical action.