The whole establishment was under the rule of a deputy-manager, who was the terror of the place.  He was tall, thin, and suffered occasionally from spitting of blood, brought on no doubt from excitement.  He was the strangest mixture of exactitude and passion.  He had complete mastery over every detail of the business, and he never blundered.  All his work was thorough, down to the very bottom, and he had the most intolerant hatred of everything which was loose and inaccurate.  He never passed a day without flaming out into oaths and curses against his subordinates, and they could not say in his wildest fury that his ravings were beside the mark.  He was wrong in his treatment of men—­utterly wrong—­but his facts were always correct.  I never saw anybody hated as he was, and the hatred against him was the more intense because nobody could convict him of a mistake.  He seemed to enjoy a storm, and knew nothing whatever of the constraints which with ordinary men prevent abusive and brutal language to those around them.  Some of his clerks suffered greatly from him, and he almost broke down two or three from the constant nervous strain upon them produced by fear of his explosions.  For my own part, although I came in for a full share of his temper, I at once made up my mind as soon as I discovered what he was, not to open my lips to him except under compulsion.  My one object now was to get a living.  I wished also to avoid the self-mortification which must ensue from altercation.  I dreaded, as I have always dreaded beyond what I can tell, the chaos and wreck which, with me, follows subjugation by anger, and I held to my resolve under all provocation.  It was very difficult, but how many times I have blessed myself for adhesion to it.  Instead of going home undone with excitement, and trembling with fear of dismissal, I have walked out of my dungeon having had to bite my lips till the blood came, but still conqueror, and with peace of mind.

Another stratagem of defence which I adopted at the office was never to betray to a soul anything about myself.  Nobody knew anything about me, whether I was married or single, where I lived, or what I thought upon a single subject of any importance.  I cut off my office life in this way from my life at home so completely that I was two selves, and my true self was not stained by contact with my other self.  It was a comfort to me to think the moment the clock struck seven that my second self died, and that my first self suffered nothing by having anything to do with it.  I was not the person who sat at the desk downstairs and endured the abominable talk of his colleagues and the ignominy of serving such a chief.  I knew nothing about him.  I was a citizen walking London streets; I had my opinions upon human beings and books; I was on equal terms with my friends; I was Ellen’s husband; I was, in short, a man.  By this scrupulous isolation, I preserved myself, and the clerk was not debarred from the domain of freedom.