of the twenty-four hours.  Not that he was absolutely idle, or averse to business then; far from it.  The difficulty was, he was apt to be altogether too energetic.  There was a strange, inflamed, flurried, flighty recklessness of activity about him.  He would be incautious in dipping his pen into his inkstand.  All his blots upon my documents, were dropped there after twelve o’clock, meridian.  Indeed, not only would he be reckless and sadly given to making blots in the afternoon, but some days he went further, and was rather noisy.  At such times, too, his face flamed with augmented blazonry, as if cannel coal had been heaped on anthracite.  He made an unpleasant racket with his chair; spilled his sand-box; in mending his pens, impatiently split them all to pieces, and threw them on the floor in a sudden passion; stood up and leaned over his table, boxing his papers about in a most indecorous manner, very sad to behold in an elderly man like him.  Nevertheless, as he was in many ways a most valuable person to me, and all the time before twelve o’clock, meridian, was the quickest, steadiest creature too, accomplishing a great deal of work in a style not easy to be matched—­for these reasons, I was willing to overlook his eccentricities, though indeed, occasionally, I remonstrated with him.  I did this very gently, however, because, though the civilest, nay, the blandest and most reverential of men in the morning, yet in the afternoon he was disposed, upon provocation, to be slightly rash with his tongue, in fact, insolent.  Now, valuing his morning services as I did, and resolved not to lose them; yet, at the same time made uncomfortable by his inflamed ways after twelve o’clock; and being a man of peace, unwilling by my admonitions to call forth unseemly retorts from him; I took upon me, one Saturday noon (he was always worse on Saturdays), to hint to him, very kindly, that perhaps now that he was growing old, it might be well to abridge his labors; in short, he need not come to my chambers after twelve o’clock, but, dinner over, had best go home to his lodgings and rest himself till teatime.  But no; he insisted upon his afternoon devotions.  His countenance became intolerably fervid, as he oratorically assured me—­gesticulating with a long ruler at the other end of the room—­that if his services in the morning were useful, how indispensable, then, in the afternoon?

“With submission, sir,” said Turkey on this occasion, “I consider myself your right-hand man.  In the morning I but marshal and deploy my columns; but in the afternoon I put myself at their head, and gallantly charge the foe, thus!”—­and he made a violent thrust with the ruler.

“But the blots, Turkey,” intimated I.

“True,—­but, with submission, sir, behold these hairs!  I am getting old.  Surely, sir, a blot or two of a warm afternoon is not to be severely urged against gray hairs.  Old age—­even if it blot the page—­is honorable.  With submission, sir, we both are getting old.”