The House of Cobwebs and Other Stories

hours a day, and his spells of labour only lengthened as time went on. Seeing himself

and all at once you spring upon me an unreasonable demand. You know how expensive these rooms are-for we m

more work upon his helpless assistant. That the work was so conscientiously done did not at all astonish him. Now and then he gave himself the satisfaction of finding fault: just to remind Topham that his bread depended on another's goodwil

Though he was earning a living, and a right to self-respect, more strenuously than Starkey ever had, this fellow made him feel like a mendicant.

r professed to aim-merely at self-improvement, or what they called 'culture.' Starkey, of course, undertook tuition in any subject, to any end, stipulating only that his fees should be paid in advance. Throughout the day his slave had been correcting Latin and Greek exercises, papers in mathematical or physical science, answers to historical questions: all elementary and many grotesqu

at the sitting-room door, and with the inattentio

or Mr. Starkey, sir

ht. Send

short of fifty, a hale, ruddy-cheeked, stoutish man, whose

nervously, though his smile and his uprig

orised to represent his principal to any one

' began the stranger. '

sending your last batch of papers to the post. You will fin

he grasped his short beard with his left hand

sual. But there's much thanks due to you, sir. You've helped me, Mr. Starkey, you really have. And that's one reason w