Mr. Lingard wrote "demoralise." It was his way of saying
"humanise."
CHAPTER XI
HUMANITY IN HIGH PLACES
One day, however, Henry was to make the still more surprising discovery,
that not only were the clerks human beings, but that one of the
partners--only one of them--was also human. He made this discovery about
the senior partner, whose old-world figure and quaint name, Septimus
Searle Lingard, had, in spite of his severity, attracted him by a
certain musty distinction.
A stranger figure than Septimus Searle Lingard has seldom walked the
streets of any town. Though not actually much over sixty, you would have
said he must be a thousand; his abnormally long, narrow, shaven face was
so thin and gaunt and hollowed, and his tall, upright figure was so
painfully fragile, that his black broadcloth seemed almost too heavy for
the worn frame inside it. And nothing in the world else was ever so
piercingly solemn as his keen weary old eyes. With his tall silk hat,
his thin white hair, his long white face, long black frock-coat, and
black trousers, he looked for all the world like a distinguished
skeleton.
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