radicles in the vaults of a dozen banks, besides its spiritual office of monitor, has a temporal office of time-keeper to perform. It certainly keeps the time of Wall Street; probably it keeps that Via Mala’s conscience also, since kept in the street it evidently is not.
The clock of Trinity marked a quarter before nine, when Brightly could see its dial through the branches of the mean trees stunted by the unwholesome diet they found in the churchyard.
“I have beat Broke this morning by fifteen minutes,” said he, and turned down the street.
A block before he arrived at his corner, he saw that a regiment of boys had collected in answer to his advertisement. “Wanted immediately, an office-boy, by John Brightly, Wall Street,” — this notice had called out from their holes and caves fifty or sixty chaps of all sizes, shapes, tints, and toggery.
Brightly’s office was on a corner, three steps below the level of the street. The throng of aspirants completely blockaded the door and filled the sidewalk. Brightly passed around them and took his stand on the high steps to the first floor of the building. From this vantage point he could inspect the troop he had evoked, and reduce it to manageable proportions, by mental subtractions.
It was an amusing sight, as all crowds are, unless the looker-on turns up his nose so much at vulgarity as to obstruct his vision.
It was a compact little crowd, well snugged together
