CHAPTER IV.

MEETING A SCHOOL-FELLOW.


Six months passed rapidly away. George continued to give satisfaction to
Mr. Compton, soon learnt the office routine, and earned the warmest
expressions of approbation from Mr. Sanders, who said he was the best
junior clerk he ever remembered to have entered that office.

George had carefully guarded against forming any kind of intimacy with
the other clerks; he had declined to have more to say to them during
office hours than possible, and when business was over he purposely
shunned them. But a strong friendship had sprung up between him and
Charles Hardy; every morning they came to the city together, and
returned in company in the evening. Sometimes George would spend an
evening at the house of Hardy's parents, and Hardy, in like manner,
would occasionally spend an evening with George.

Williams and Lawson had, as Hardy predicted, been a source of great
annoyance to George. He was constantly obliged to bear their ridicule
because he would not conform to their habits, and sometimes the insults
he received were almost beyond his power of endurance. He and Hardy
received the name of the "Siamese youths," and were generally greeted
with such salutations as "How d'ye do? Is mamma pretty well?"--or
something equally galling. But George bore it all with exemplary