Then did Satan angle for him in vain.
So, on this Monday evening, there were but seventeen at the gathering. I
hesitate over what to name the gathering. I would call it a party, but
that in many respects it was so totally different from anything with
which you are probably acquainted by that name.
The young man who stands by the door of the conservatory, eagerly
describing to Miss Henderson a rare and curious flower, which has been
sent to Mrs. Roberts from California, is "black Dirk." Really, I hope
you are sufficiently astonished; for he looks so utterly unlike the
scamp who used to be the special torment of the South End Mission that I
should be disappointed if you were not impressed by it. "Mr. Colson"
almost everybody calls him now. The name has long since lost its
strangeness. He is in the employ of the great firm of Bostwick, Smythe,
Roberts & Co., and although Mr. Roberts has never found it convenient to
do so before, there were reasons why he thought it would be well to have
a clerk within call; so Mr. Colson boards with what was the junior
partner of the firm. He is so no more, by the way, for Mr. Ried has been
received as a member, and is decidedly a junior partner. Probably Mr.
Roberts could tell you, if he chose, why one so young, and without
capital, had been elected to partnership; but, as a rule, he keeps his
own counsel, only remarking that the young man developed remarkable
business faculties which were patent to the whole firm.
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