That Office Boy #223282

In the outer and inner offices of St. Xavier School all was quiet. Within, Father Carney was looking over the morning paper; without, Michael was sitting before his desk, his head thrown back, his eyes dreamily fixed on the ceiling. It was nine o'clock in the morning, and, to borrow Michael's expression, "there was nothing doing." Twelve hundred children, apportioned, according to sex and different grades of ignorance, into twenty-three classrooms were within easy reach of the office; but there came no sound to indicate their propinquity. The fog without, thick, heavy, novembrine, seemed to deaden the noises of Sycamore and the neighboring streets.<br><br>"Why don't something happen?" mused Michael. "A fellow would even be glad of an earthquake."