the school at Hackney, and Tom had come
into one of a number of small legacies, which
his father had left in equal proportions to all
his children. Tom received the amount from
his eldest brother, the executor, after a deduction
of about one-third, for loans and interest,
medical attendance, &c., as per account
rendered, from the family ledger before
alluded to. Small as the sum was, to a person
of Tom's humble ideas and inexpensive
tastes, it was a mine of wealth. By great
good management he contrived to live upon
it for nearly ten years, and it was almost
drawing to an end when I seized the opportunity
that offered of placing him in our counting-
house. Tom had not been idle during
these ten years. He had inserted advertisements
in the papers, he had canvassed friends,
he had walked many times wearily and
diffidently into offices and warehouses, he had
begged to be employed; but his conscientious
fidelity, his industrious zeal, his noble and
valuable qualities, were sent away as if they
had been the veriest drug in the market,
because he could not carry his heart upon his
sleeve. And yet no sooner had he left the
door, than those who spurned him were
loudly asking for that which had just been
offered to them in vain. It is useless to
preach about not judging by appearances; to
say that merit will make itself discovered
under the most ungainly exterior; that if the
kernel be good it matters little what the
shell may be; I know better; we all know
better. Qualities of the heart, far more
valuable than any intellectual gifts, or force
of will, embodied in weak and unsightly
frames, may hover near us like unseen angels,
and be unheeded, trifled with, doubted, and
despised. The brazen face and the strong
lungs are the practical rulers of the world.
During Tom's endeavours to get employment
he had lost twenty pounds of his little store
by leaving it as a " cash deposit," or " guarantee
of fidelity," with a "general merchant,"
who left him in charge of a very dull, quiet,
ill-furnished office, for about ten days, at
the end of which time even Tom became
aware that he had been swindled out of his
money.

I got poor Tom into old Biddles' office in
this way. Old B. liked to buy his labour,
like everything else, in the cheapest market,
and when a new junior clerk was proposed, I
introduced Tom to do a man's work at a boy's
price, and that way of putting it so excited
the cupidity of the old fellow, that I had the
satisfaction of carrying my point at once.
Small as the salary was, Tom was grateful,
and never did servant serve a master with
more honesty and scrupulous fidelity than
Tom did old Biddles. Punctual to a second
in arriving at his desk, steady and industrious
in his application to work, religiously
exact in his economy of time (which being
paid for employing he did not consider his
own), considerate and correct in all matters
of office expenditure, treating other people's
property as tenderly as if it had been his
own—a man with few desires, no debts, and
with always a little set aside out of his small
store for purposes of charity. What did he
gain by all these virtues? Was Tom looked
up to with more respect by his fellow clerks?
I am afraid not. Was he advanced to any
position of trust by his employer? I am
sure not. He was treated with even more
than the general suspicion that characterised
old Biddles' dealings with everyone in
business—friend or foe, clerk or client. Tom did
not command admiration by any showy
abilities, and his solid virtues were left to rot
in neglect.

Thus poor Tom did his duty nobly, from
year to year, without any encouragement,
though he needed none; a poor simple-
hearted, honest fellow, he had no idea that
he was acting differently from other people.
"You know, Robert," he used to say to me,
"we are not all gifted with talent; I know I
am neither active nor clever, but I do
my best, and I hope Mr. Biddles is satisfied,
though I sometimes fear that he is not."
This remark was generally made after one of
those miserable wet, busy, muddy November
days, when Tom was kept running about
from nine to six, under a short faded macintosh
cape, and when old Biddles was more
than usually surly.

We passed in this way something like five
years together, until I had a serious attack of
illness that kept me away from my office
many weeks. Tom, after the labour of the
day, seldom missed calling to inquire about
me, long as the distance was, and very often
brought me little delicacies suited for an
invalid. I could not prevent his bringing
them, although I felt that their purchase
must have pinched him in various ways.
The nature of my complaint made it necessary
for me to take a holiday of a couple of
months; and so great was poor Tom's fear
that such a long absence would lead to my
dismissal by old Biddles—although even in
this anxiety there was not a particle of
selfishness—that I was compelled to tell him that
my engagement was under articles that could
not be broken.

When I returned re-invigorated to my
duties, I found, to my surprise, a marked
change in Tom. His manner was evidently
embarrassed, and in his appearance there
was a feeble and clumsy attempt to be
buckish. When a man returns to an office
after an absence of some months everything
seems to him cold and strange; he does not
fit into his accustomed corners, his papers
look spectral, he hardly knows where to put
his coat, and his hat tumbles down from its peg.
If the place has been re-painted and furnished
(as mine had been), this makes matters
worse. I did not question Tom the first or
second day, as I thought much of his altered
appearance might have been a partial delusion