“My friend, you will decide before zat I go to Italy.” said Mr. Pericles, and presently took his leave.

When he was gone, Mr. Pole turned his chair to the table, and made an attempt to inspect one of the papers deliberately.  Having untied it, he retied it with care, put it aside, marked ‘immediate,’ and read the letter from Riga anew.  This he tore into shreds, with animadversions on the quality of the rags that had produced it, and opened the important paper once more.  He got to the end of a sentence or two, when his fingers moved about for the letter; and then his mind conceived a necessity for turning to the directory, for which he rang the bell.  The great red book was brought into his room by a youthful clerk, who waited by, while his master, unaware of his presence, tracked a name with his forefinger.  It stopped at Pole, Samuel Bolton; and a lurking smile was on the merchant’s face as he read the name:  a smile of curious meaning, neither fresh nor sad; the meditative smile of one who looks upon an afflicted creature from whom he is aloof.  After a lengthened contemplation of this name, he said, with a sigh, “Poor Chump!  I wonder whether he’s here, too.”  A search for the defunct proved that he was out of date.  Mr. Pole thrust his hand to the bell that he might behold poor Chump in an old directory that would call up the blotted years.

“I am here, sir,” said his clerk, who had been holding deferential watch at a few steps from the table.

“What do you do here then, sir, all this time?”

“I waited, sir, because—­”

“You waste and dawdle away twenty or thirty minutes, when you ought to be doing your work.  What do you mean?” Mr. Pole stood up and took an angry stride.

The young man could scarcely believe his master was not stooping to jest with him.  He said:  “For that matter, sir, it can’t be a minute that I have been wasting.”

“I called you in half an hour ago,” returned Mr. Pole, fumbling at his watch-fob.

“It must have been somebody else, sir.”

“Did you bring in this directory?  Look at it!  This?”

“This is the book that I brought in, sir.”

“How long since?”

“I think, not a minute and a half, sir.”

Mr. Pole gazed at him, and coughed slowly.  “I could have sworn...” he murmured, and commenced blinking.

“I suppose I must be a little queer,” he pursued; and instantly his right hand struck out, quivering.  The young clerk grasped it, and drew him to a chair.

“Tush,” said his master, working his feverish fingers across his forehead.  “Want of food.  I don’t eat like you young fellows.  Fetch me a glass of wine and a biscuit.  Good wine, mind.  Port.  Or, no; you can’t trust tavern Port:—­brandy.  Get it yourself, don’t rely on the porter.  And bring it yourself, you understand the importance?  What is your name?”

“Braintop,” replied the youth, with the modesty of one whose name has been too frequently subjected to puns.