"There goes six of 'em!" he uttered, as the cathedral clock rang out
the hour, and his boots threatened to stave in the floor. "If I stand
this life much longer, I'll be shot! It's enough to take the spirit out
of a fellow; to wear the flesh off his bones; to afflict him with
nervous fever. What an idiot I was to let my lady mother put me here!
Better have stuck to those musty old lessons at school, and gone in for
a parson! Why can't Jenkins get well, and come back? He's shirking it,
that's my belief. And why can't Galloway have Arthur back? He might, if
he pressed it! Talk of solitary confinement driving prisoners mad, at
their precious model prisons, what else is this? I wish I could go mad
for a week, if old Galloway might be punished for it! It's worse than
any prison, this office! At four o'clock he went out, and now it's six,
and I have not had a blessed soul put his nose inside the door to say,
'How are you getting on?' I'm a regular prisoner, and nothing else. Why
doesn't he--"
The complaint was cut short by the entrance of Mr. Galloway.
Unconscious of the rebellious feelings of his clerk, he passed through
the office to his own room, Roland's rat-tat-to having ceased at his
appearance. To find Roland drumming the floor with his feet was nothing
unusual--rather moderate for him; Mr. Galloway _had_ found him doing it
with his head. Two or three minutes elapsed, and Mr. Galloway came out
again.
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