all respects. Lived with his mother--was her
sole support. A proud woman, Mrs. Clark--
a proud woman, with a broken spirit--withdrawn
entirely from the world, and had been
so for years and years. The Clarks, as had been
mentioned, were all peculiar--even the younger Mr.
Clark, our friend, I had doubtless noticed was an
odd genius, but he had stamina--something solid
about him, for all his eccentricities--could be relied
on. Had been with the house there since a boy
of twelve--took him for the father's sake; had never
missed a day's time in any line of work that ever
had been given in his charge--was weakly-looking,
too. Had worked his way from the cellar up--from
the least pay to the highest--had saved enough to
buy and pay for a comfortable house for his mother
and himself, and, still a lad, maintained the
expense of companion, attendant and maid servant for
the mother. Yet, with all this burden on his
shoulders, the boy had worried through some way, with
a jolly smile and a good word for every one. "A
boy, sir," the enthusiastic senior concluded--"a boy,
sir, that never was a boy, and never had a taste of
genuine boyhood in his life--no more than he ever
took a taste of whisky, and you couldn't get that
in him with a funnel!"

At this juncture Mr. Clark himself appeared, and
in a particularly happy frame of mind. For an
hour the delighted senior and myself sat laughing at