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The morning, as though to accord with his disastrous fortunes, dawned
inclemently. An easterly gale was shouting in the streets; flaws of rain
angrily assailed the windows; and as Morris dressed, the draught from
the fireplace vividly played about his legs.
'I think,' he could not help observing bitterly, 'that with all I have
to bear, they might have given me decent weather.'
There was no bread in the house, for Miss Hazeltine (like all women left
to themselves) had subsisted entirely upon cake. But some of this was
found, and (along with what the poets call a glass of fair, cold water)
made up a semblance of a morning meal, and then down he sat
undauntedly
to his delicate task.
Nothing can be more interesting than the study of signatures,
written (as they are) before meals and after, during indigestion and
intoxication; written when the signer is trembling for the life of his
child or has come from winning the Derby, in his lawyer's office, or
under the bright eyes of his sweetheart. To the vulgar, these seem never
the same; but to the expert, the bank clerk, or the lithographer, they
are constant quantities, and as recognizable as the North Star to the
night-watch on deck.
To all this Morris was alive. In the theory of that graceful art in
which he was now embarking, our spirited leather-merchant was beyond
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