This was life. He tried
conscientiously to do his best in it. Other men did; so could he.
The winter moved on somnolently. He knew he was not making a success.
Harvey was inscrutable, taciturn, not to be approached. Fox seemed to
have forgotten his official existence, although he was hearty enough in
his morning greetings to the young man. The young bookkeeper, Archie,
was more friendly, but even he was a being apart, alien, one of the
strangely accurate machines for the putting down and docketing of these
innumerable and unimportant figures. He would have liked to know and
understand Bob, just as the latter would have liked to know and
understand him, but they were separated by a wide gulf in which whirled
the nothingnesses of training and temperament. However, Archie often
pointed out mistakes to Bob before the sardonic Harvey discovered them.
Harvey never said anything. He merely made a blue pencil mark in the
margin, and handed the document back. But the weariness of his smile!
One day Bob was sent to the bank. His business there was that of an
errand boy. Discovering it to be sleeting, he returned for his overcoat.
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