Excerpt from That Office Boy 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. "Why don't something happen?" mused Michael. "A fellow would even be glad of an earthquake." About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.