And all that now remained of that glory was these
debased and vicious shapes, magnificently useless, grossly ugly, with
their inscriptions lost in a mess of flourishes.
"Ay!" he said again, when I had fingered the last of them.
"A very fine show indeed!" I said, resuming the sofa.
He took a penny bottle of ink and a pen out of the bookcase, and also,
from the lowest shelf, a bag of money and a long narrow account book.
Then he sat down at the table and commenced accountancy. It was clear
that he regarded his task as formidable and complex. To see him
reckoning the coins, manipulating the pen, splashing the ink, scratching
the page; to hear him whispering consecutive numbers aloud, and
muttering mysterious anathemas against the untamable naughtiness of
figures--all this was painful, and with the painfulness of a simple
exercise rendered difficult by inaptitude and incompetence. I wanted to
jump up and cry to him: "Get out of the way, man, and let me do it for
you! I can do it while you are wiping hairs from your pen on your
sleeve." I was sorry for him because he was ridiculous--and even more
grotesque than ridiculous.
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