board, or in the cabinet, or a throne, or a presidential chair."

The stranger stood pondering before the desk with an unquiet,
dissatisfied air,--a dull, vague pain of heart, expressed by a
slight contortion of the brow,--an earnestness of glance, that asked
and expected, yet continually wavered, as if distrusting. In short,
he evidently wanted, not in a physical or intellectual sense, but
with an urgent moral necessity that is the hardest of all things to
satisfy, since it knows not its own object.

"Ah, you mistake me!" said he at length, with a gesture of nervous
impatience." Either of the places you mention, indeed, might answer
my purpose; or, more probably, none of them. I want my place! my
own place! my true place in the world! my proper sphere! my thing to
do, which Nature intended me to perform when she fashioned me thus
awry, and which I have vainly sought all my lifetime! Whether it be
a footman's duty or a king's is of little consequence, so it be
naturally mine. Can you help me here?"

"I will enter your application," answered the Intelligencer, at the
same time writing a few lines in his volume. "But to undertake such
a business, I tell you frankly, is quite apart from the ground
covered by my official duties. Ask for something specific, and it
may doubtless be negotiated for you, on your compliance with the
conditions. But were I to go further, I should have the whole
population of the city upon my shoulders; since far the greater
proportion of them are, more or less, in your predicament."

The applicant sank into a fit of despondency, and passed out of the
door without again lifting his eyes; and, if he died of the