Mudge could read the signs of the times for all that his master had described him as " a mere machine ," and, looking on the dial of his master's face, there descried "what o'clock it was;" in other words,
He stole about a-tiptoe, and when an unlucky copy ing-clerk in a corner of the outer room overset a folio, he turned upon him so threatening and wrathful a countenance that that unhappy one shrank into himself till the top of his head was all that was visible above the collar of his coat.  Mudge could read the signs of the times for all that his master had described him as " a mere machine ," and, looking on the dial of his master's face, there descried "what o'clock it was;" in other words,  88 WINSTOAV^ recognised the fact that to interrupt the conference at present going on, would be to incur vast and unknown penalties.