Shine 'e boots, sir?
'ere yer are, sir.
Not that bloke, sir.

Do yer 'ear?
Shine 'e boots, mister ?" This last spirited call was addressed to an elderly gentleman who was passing.

He yielded eventually to the youth's solicitation, and I therefore resumed my walk to the office with a good deal more to think of than I had when I started.
If I had desired to make a sensation at Hawk Street, I could hardly have done better than turn up that morning as usual.

It was a picture to see the fellows' faces of alarm, bewilderment, astonishment, and finally of merriment.
They had all heard that I was laid up with smallpox, which, as my friend Smith was also ill of the same malady, they all considered as natural on my part, and highly proper.

They had, in fact, faced the prospect of getting on without me, and were quite prepared to exist accordingly.
The partners, too, had talked the matter over, and come to the decision of advertising again without delay for a new clerk to take my place, and that very morning were intending to draw up the advertisement and send it to the papers.
Under these circumstances I appeared unexpectedly and just as usual on the Hawk Street horizon.