But when, a little later, he entered his counting-room alone, it was plain he had the dark glasses on still. Not a man about the establishment worked as he should do, he said. It used to be different when he was a boy. Then he turned and went out of the house with a look of disgust.
As soon as he was gone the bookkeeper scolded the clerk, the clerk scolded the boy, and the boy went out to the front door and abused the porter. And after that, throughout the day, everything seemed to go wrong with Peter himself and all who were about him; yet surely the fault was his own.
A few mornings after this it seemed as though Peter’s glasses had undergone another change. They appeared now to be of a blue color. He was in a milder frame, but low in spirits. He was sorry to see the nursery carpet wearing out, for he did not know where another would come from. At breakfast he watched the children taking butter, and took hardly any himself. He begged Mrs. Crisp to put less sugar in his coffee. The frown was gone from his brow but a most dejected look had taken its place. Spying a hole in the toe of his boy’s shoe, he drew a long breath; and, hearing that the dressmaker was engaged to come the next week for his daughters, he sighed aloud. On his way down town, walking alone (for he avoided company), he looked as if he had lost a near relation, and at the store all day seemed to feel like a man who was just on the eve of failing in business, though there was, in truth, no danger of his doing any such thing.