CHAPTER TWELVE.
HOW MY FRIEND SMITH AND I KNOCKED ABOUT A BIT IN OUR NEW QUARTERS.
Smith and I had a good deal more than dinner to discuss that morning as we rested for twenty minutes from our office labours.
He was very much in earnest about his new work, I could see; and I felt, as I listened to him, that my own aspirations for success were not nearly as deep-seated as his.

He didn't brag, or build absurd castles in the air; but he made no secret of the fact that now he was once in the business he meant to get on, and expected pretty confidently that he would do so.
I wished I could feel half as sure of myself.

At any rate, I was encouraged by Jack Smith's enthusiasm, and returned at the end of my twenty minutes to my desk with every intention of distinguishing myself at my work.
But somehow everything was so novel, and I was so curiously disposed, that I could not prevent my thoughts wandering a good deal, or listening to the constant running fire of small talk that was going on among my fellow-clerks.

And this was all the less to be wondered at, since I myself was a prominent topic of conversation.
Mr Doubleday was a most curious mixture of humour, pomposity, and business, which made it very hard to know how exactly to take him.

If I dared to laugh at a joke, he fired up, and ordered me angrily to get on with my work.