more valuable in the hands of a man like himself, full of intellectual
tastes and accomplishments, than frittered away by dull boors of
untravelled, uncultivated squires--whose company, however, be it said by
the way, he never refused.

And yet daily Mr. Wilkins was sinking from the intellectually to the
sensually self-indulgent man. He lay late in bed, and hated Mr. Dunster
for his significant glance at the office-clock when he announced to his
master that such and such a client had been waiting more than an hour to
keep an appointment. "Why didn't you see him yourself, Dunster? I'm
sure you would have done quite as well as me," Mr. Wilkins sometimes
replied, partly with a view of saying something pleasant to the man whom
he disliked and feared. Mr. Dunster always replied, in a meek matter-of-
fact tone, "Oh, sir, they wouldn't like to talk over their affairs with a
subordinate."

And every time he said this, or some speech of the same kind, the idea
came more and more clearly into Mr. Wilkins's head, of how pleasant it
would be to himself to take Dunster into partnership, and thus throw all
the responsibility of the real work and drudgery upon his clerk's
shoulders. Importunate clients, who would make appointments at
unseasonable hours and would keep to them, might confide in the partner,
though they would not in the clerk. The great objections to this course
were, first and foremost, Mr. Wilkins's strong dislike to Mr. Dunster--his
repugnance to his company, his dress, his voice, his ways--all of which
irritated his employer, till his state of feeling towards Dunster might
be called antipathy; next, Mr. Wilkins was fully aware of the fact that
all Mr. Dunster's actions and words were carefully and thoughtfully pre-
arranged to further the great unspoken desire of his life--that of being
made a partner where he now was only a servant. Mr. Wilkins took a