There was a moment’s silence.  Then a heavy-voiced gentleman took up a pen and said: 

“Is this man’s name Dreyfus—­or—­or what is it?”

“Let me think,” returned the president, returning once more to the Commerce; “Dreyfus?—­no—­not Dreyfus—­yes—­no.  Paying teller—­hum—­it’s curious I can’t recall—­it commences with an F—­FIELDS—­yes, Fields! that’s his name—­Fields, to be sure!”

The questioner at once wrote down the word on the paper.

“This is the second time that he has applied for this favor, is it not?” formally inquired another of the thirteen, in the tone that a judge uses when he asks the clerk, “Has he not been before me on a former occasion?”

“Yes,” replied the president, “this is a renewal of an effort made six months ago.”

There was a general movement.  Several chairs rolled back, and their occupants exchanged querulous glances.

“Suppose we hear the letter read,” suggested a fair soul.  “Perhaps”—­a septuagenarian, with snowy hair and a thin body, clad in the clerical guise of the old school, and who had made a fortune by inventing a hat-block, arose hastily to his feet, and said: 

“I cannot stay to listen to a dun!”

A chorus from the majority echoed the exclamation.  All but four staggered to their feet, and tottered off in various directions; some to pretend to look out at the window, and some to the wardrobes, where was deposited their outer clothing.

“Clarks,” stammered the feeble hatter, feeling vainly for the arm-holes in his great-coat—­“clarks presume on their value.  Turn ’em out, say I. Give ’em a chance to rotate.  You’ve got my opinion, Mr. President.  Refuse what’s-his-name, Fields.  Tell him he’s happy and well off now, without knowing it.  Where can be the sleeves to—­to this”—­his voice expired in his perplexity.

Fields’s cause looked blue.  One director after another groped to the door, saying, as he went, “I can’t encourage it, Mr. President—­tell him ‘No,’ Mr. President—­it would only make the rest uneasy if we allowed it—­plenty more to fill his place.”

The hatter’s voice stopped further mention of the subject.  He stood at one end of the apartment in a paroxysm of laughter.  Tears filled his eyes.  He pointed to another director, who, at the other extremity of the room, was also puzzling over a coat.  “There’s Stuart with my mackintosh!  He’s trying to put it on—­and here am I with his coat trying to put that on.  I—­I said to myself, ’This is pretty large for a slim man like you.’—­Great God, Stuart, if I hadn’t been quick-sighted we might have stayed here all night!” He immediately fell into another fit of laughter, and so did his friend.  They exchanged coats with great hilarity, and those who had gone out of the door lumbered back to learn the cause of it.  The story went round from one to the other, “Why, Stuart had Jacobs’s coat, and Jacobs had Stuart’s coat!” Everybody went into convulsions, and the president drew out his pocket-handkerchief and shrieked into it.