"I
may be head clerk, perhaps. But--" he stopped, confused.
"But what?"
"I'd rather fly, sir, than anything in the world!" He looked
worshippingly at Bob's uniform. "If the war had only not stopped before
I was old enough, I might have had a chance!"
"Oh, you'll have plenty of chances," Bob told him consolingly. "In five
years' time you'll be taking Mr. M'Clinton's confidential papers across
to Paris in an aeroplane--and bringing him back a reply before lunch!"
"Do you think so, sir?" The office-boy's eyes danced. Suddenly he
resumed his professional gravity.
"I must get back to my work, sir." He disappeared behind another
partition; the office seemed to Bob to be divided into water-tight
compartments, in each of which he imagined that a budding lawyer or head
clerk was being brought up by hand. It was all rather grim and solid and
forbidding. To Bob the law had always been full of mystery; this grey,
silent office, in the heart of the city, was a fitting place for it.
He felt a little chill at his heart, a foreboding that no comfort could
come of his mission there.
The inner door opened, after a little while, and a woman in black came
out. She passed hurriedly through the outer office, pulling down her
veil over a face that showed traces of tears. Bob looked after her
compassionately.
"Poor soul!" he thought. "She's had her gruel, evidently.
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