The works of Edgar Allan Poe; newly collected and edited, with a memoir, critical introductions, and notes, by Edmund Clarence Stedman and George Edward Woodberry; the illustrations by Albert Edward Sterner.

TALES OF CONSCIENCE

restless in their movements, had flushed faces, and
talked and gesticulated to themselves, as if feeling in
solitude on account of the very denseness of the company around. When impeded in their progress, these
people suddenly ceased muttering, but redoubled their
gesticulations, and awaited, with an absent and overdone smile upon the lips, the course of the persons
impeding them. If jostled, they bowed profusely to
the jostlers, and appeared overwhelmed with confusion. There was nothing very distinctive about
these two large classes beyond what I have noted.
Their habiliments belonged to that order which is
pointedly termed the decent. They were undoubtedly
noblemen, merchants, attorneys, tradesmen, stockjobbers-the Eupatrids and the common-places of
society - men of leisure and men actively engaged
in affairs of their own —conducting business upon
their own responsibility. They did not greatly excite
my attention.
The tribe of clerks was an obvious one; and here I
discerned two remarkable divisions. There were the
junior clerks of flash houses - young gentlemen with
tight coats, bright boots, well-oiled hair, and supercilious lips. Setting aside a certain dapperness of
carriage, which may be termed deskism for want of a
better word, the manner of these persons seemed to
me an exact fac-simile of what had been the perfection of bon ton about twelve or eighteen months before.
They wore the cast-off graces of the gentry; and this,
I believe, involves the best definition of the class.
The division of the upper clerks of stanch firms, or
of the " steady old fellows," it was not possible to mistake. These were known by their coats and pantaloons of black or brown, made to sit comfortably, with
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