more than ten minutes before he realized that he might better have remained at home while the influence of Jack’s wasted energy was within him.  He was in a state of irrepressibility.  No matter how strongly he endeavored to hold himself in check he could not do so, and his day down-town was like the days of most boys who are permitted to spend a morning and an afternoon with their parent in the workshop.  The first thing he did on reaching his desk was to roll back its folding top.  This pleased him unaccountably.  He had never before imagined that so much fun could be got out of the rolling top of a desk, and for a full quarter of an hour he pulled it backward and forward, and so noisily withal that Mr. Baker sent one of the clerks in to see if the office-boy had not become suddenly insane.

Recalled to his true self for the moment, Jarley endeavored to get down to work, but as he made the endeavor he became conscious that a revolving chair has very pleasing qualities to one who is fond of twirling.  Round and round he twirled, and as he twirled he grabbed up his cane, and in a moment realized that he was playing that he was on a merry-go-round, and trying to secure a renewal of his right to ride by catching imaginary rings on the end of his stick.  This operation consumed quite five minutes more of his time, and was accompanied by such a vast number of “Hoop-las” that Mr. Baker came himself to see what was the cause of the unseemly racket.  Fortunately for Jarley, just as his partner reached the doorway, the chair had reached the limit of its twirling capacity, and having been unscrewed as far as it could be, toppled over on to the floor, with Jarley underneath.  “What in the world does this mean, Jarley?” said Mr. Baker, severely, as he assisted his fallen partner to rise.

“My chair has come apart,” laughed Jarley, getting red in the face.

“That’s the great trouble with that kind of chair,” said Mr. Baker.  “You don’t seem to mind the mishap very much.”

“Oh no,” said Jarley, gritting his teeth in his determination not to follow his mad impulse to jump on Mr. Baker’s shoulders and clamor for a picky-back ride.  “No; I don’t mind little things like that much.”

Here he stood on his right leg, as he had done before breakfast, and began to hop.

“Hurt your foot?” queried Mr. Baker.

Jarley seized at the suggestion with all the despairing vigor of a drowning man clutching at a rope.

“Yes; a little, but not enough to mention,” he said; whereupon, much to his relief, Mr. Baker turned away and went back to his own room.

“This will never do,” Jarley moaned to himself when his partner had gone.  “If one of my clients should come in—­”