Marley found the new county clerk at his desk, obviously ready for business. The desk was clean, with a cleanness that was rather a barrenness than an order. The ink-wells, the pens, with their shining new steel points, the fresh blotters, all were laid on the clean pad with geometrical exactness. The pigeon holes were empty, but they were all lettered as if the mind of the new county clerk had grappled with the future, come off victorious, and provided for every possible emergency, though there were certain contingencies that had impressed him as “Miscellaneous.”
Carman looked up with the obliging expression of the new public official, but Marley’s heart instantly sank with a foreboding that told him he might as well turn about then and go. It was plain that Carman saw nothing in the call beyond a mere incident of the day’s work.
Marley took a chair near Carman’s desk. He looked at Carman once, and then looked instantly away; the eye that lacked the power of accommodation was fixed on him, and it made him nervous.
“Do you remember me, Mr. Carman?” asked Marley; and then fearing the reply he hastened to add: “I’m Glenn Marley; Mr. Powell introduced me to you out at the fair-grounds last fall.”
“Yes, I remember,” said Carman.
“I suppose you know what I came for?”
Carman’s right eye widened somewhat in an expression of mild surprise.
“You know,” urged Marley, “the clerkship.”
“What clerkship was that?”
“Why, don’t you know? The chief clerkship, I reckon.”