I went over the address in my own mind to make sure, and also repeated the directions given me by Mr Revitts, so as to make no mistake in going into the City. Then I thought over again Mr Rowle’s remarks about his brother, his name, Jabez, his age, and his being exactly like himself. That would, I thought, make it easy for me to recognise him; and in this spirit I walked on through the busy streets, feeling a good deal confused at being pushed and hustled about so much, while twice I was nearly run over in crossing the roads.

At last, after asking, by Mr Revitts’ advice, my way of different policemen when I was at fault, I found myself soon after two in Short Street, Fetter Lane, facing a pile of buildings from the base of which came the hiss and pant of steam, with the whirr, clang, and roar of machinery; while on the doorpost was a bright zinc plate with the legend “Ruddle and Lister, General Printers;” and above that, written on a card in a large legible hand, and tacked against the woodwork, the words “Boys Wanted.”

This announcement seemed to take away my breath, and I hesitated for a few minutes before I dared approach the place; but I went up at last, and then, seeing a severe-looking man in a glass box reading a newspaper, I shrank back and walked on a little way, forgetting all about Mr Jabez Rowle in my anxiety to try and obtain a situation by whose means I could earn my living.

At last, in a fit of desperation, I went up to the glass case, and the man reading the newspaper let it fall upon his knees and opened a little window.

“Now then, what is it?” he said in a gruff voice.

“If you please, sir, there’s a notice about boys wanted – ”

“Down that passage, upstairs, first floor,” said the man gruffly, and banged down the window.

I was a little taken aback, but I pushed a swing-door, and went with a beating heart along the passage, on one side of which were rooms fitted up something like Mr Blakeford’s office, and on the other side a great open floor stacked with reams of paper, and with laths all over the ceiling, upon which boys with curious pieces of wood, something like long wooden crutches, were hanging up sheets of paper to dry, while at broad tables by the windows I could see women busily folding more sheets of paper, as if making books.

It was but a casual glance I had as I passed on, and then went by a room with the door half open and the floor carpeted inside. There was a pleasant, musical voice speaking, and then there was a burst of laughter, all of which seemed out of keeping in that dingy place, full of the throb of machinery, and the odour of oil and steam.

At the end of the passage was the staircase, and going up, I was nearly knocked over by a tall, fat-headed boy, who blundered roughly against me, and then turned round to cry indignantly —

“Now, stoopid, where are yer a-coming to?”

“Can you tell me, please, where I am to ask about boys being wanted?” I said mildly.

“Oh, find out! There ain’t no boys wanted here.”

“Not wanted here!” I faltered, with my hopes terribly dashed, for I had been building castles high in the air.

“No; be off!” he said roughly, when a new character appeared on the scene in the shape of a business-looking man in a white apron, carrying down an iron frame, and having one hand at liberty, he made use of it to give the big lad a cuff on the ear.

“You make haste and fetch up those galleys, Jem Smith;” and the boy went on down three stairs at a time. “What do you want, my man?” he continued, turning to me.

“I saw there were boys wanted, sir, and I was going upstairs.”

“When that young scoundrel told you a lie. There, go on, and in at that swing-door; the overseer’s office is at the end.”

I thanked him, and went on, pausing before a door blackened by dirty hands, and listened for a moment before going in.

The hum of machinery sounded distant here, and all within seemed very still, save a faint clicking noise, till suddenly I heard a loud clap-clapping, as if a flat piece of wood were being banged down and then struck with a mallet; and directly after came a hammering, as if some one was driving a wooden peg.

There were footsteps below, and I dared not hesitate longer; so, pushing the door, it yielded, and I found myself in a great room, where some forty men in aprons and shirt-sleeves were busy at what at the first glance seemed to be desks full of little compartments, from which they were picking something as they stood, but I was too much confused to notice more than that they took not the slightest notice of me, as I stopped short, wondering where the overseer’s room would be.

At one corner I could see an old man at a desk, with a boy standing beside him, both of them shut up in a glass case, as if they were curiosities; in another corner there was a second glass case, in which a fierce-looking man with a shiny bald head and glittering spectacles was gesticulating angrily to one of the men in white aprons, and pointing to a long, narrow slip of paper.

I waited for a moment, and then turned to the man nearest to me.

“Can you tell me, please, which is the overseer’s office?” I said, cap in hand.

“Folio forty-seven – who’s got folio forty-seven?” he said aloud.

“Here!” cried a voice close by.

“Make even. – Get out; don’t bother me.”

I shrank away, confused and perplexed, and a dark, curly-haired man on the other side turned upon me a pair of deeply set stern eyes, as he rattled some little square pieces of lead into something he held in his hand.

“What is it, boy?” he said in a deep, low voice.

“Can you direct me to the overseer’s office, sir?”

“That’s it, boy, where that gentleman in spectacles is talking.”

“Wigging old Morgan,” said another man, laughing.

“Ah!” said the first speaker, “that’s the place, boy;” and he turned his eyes upon a slip of paper in front of his desk.

I said, “Thank you!” and went on along the passage between two rows of the frame desks to where the fierce-looking bald man was still gesticulating, and as I drew near I could hear what he said.

“I’ve spoken till I’m tired of speaking; your slips are as foul as a ditch. Confound you, sir, you’re a perfect disgrace to the whole chapel. Do you think your employers keep readers to do nothing else but correct your confounded mistakes? Read your stick, sir – read your stick!”

“Very sorry,” grumbled the man, “but it was two o’clock this morning, and I was tired as a dog.”

“Don’t talk to me, sir; I don’t care if it was two o’clock, or twelve o’clock, or twenty-four o’clock. I say that slip’s a disgrace to you; and for two pins, sir – for two pins I’d have it framed and stuck up for the men to see. Be off and correct it. – Now, then, what do you want?”

This was to me, and I was terribly awe-stricken at the fierce aspect of the speaker, whose forehead was now of a lively pink.

“If you please, sir, I saw that you wanted boys, and – ”

“No; I don’t want boys,” he raved. “I’m sick of the young monkeys; but I’m obliged to have them.”

“I am sorry, sir – ” I faltered.

“Oh yes; of course. Here, stop! where are you going?”

“Please, sir, you said you didn’t want any boys.”

“You’re very sharp, ain’t you? Now hold your tongue, and then answer what I ask and no more. What are you – a machine boy or reader?”

“If you please, sir, I – I don’t know – I thought – I want – ”

“Confound you; hold your tongue!” he roared. “Where did you work last?”

“At – at Mr Blakeford’s,” I faltered, feeling bound to speak the truth.

“Blakeford’s! Blakeford’s! – I know no Blakeford’s. At machine?”

“No, sir! I wrote all day.”

“Wrote? What, wasn’t it a printing-office?”

“No, sir.”

“How dare you come wasting my time like this, you insolent young scoundrel! Be off! Get out with you! I never knew such insolence in my life.”

I shrank away, trembling, and began to retreat down the avenue, this time with the men’s faces towards me, ready to gaze in my red and guilty countenance, for I felt as if I had been guilty of some insult to the majesty of the printing-office. To my great relief, though, the men were too busy to notice me; but I heard one say to another, “Old Brimstone’s hot this morning.” Then I passed on, and saw the dark man looking at me silently from beneath his overhanging brows; and the next moment, heartsick and choking with the effects of this rebuff, the swing-door was thrown open by the fat-headed boy coming in, and as I passed out, unaccustomed to its spring, the boy contrived that it would strike me full in the back, just as if the overseer had given me a rude push to drive me away.

I descended the stairs with the spirit for the moment crushed out of me; and with my eyes dim with disappointment, I was passing along the passage, when, as I came to the open door of the carpeted room, a man’s voice exclaimed —

“No, no, Miss Carr, you really shall not. We’ll send it on by one of the boys.”

“Oh, nonsense, Mr Lister; I can carry it.”

“Yes, yes; of course you can, but I shall not let you. Here, boy, come here.”

I entered the room nervously, to find myself in presence of a handsome, well-dressed man, another who was stout and elderly, and two young ladies, while upon the table lay a parcel of books, probably the subject of the remark.

“Hallo! what boy are you?” said the younger man. “Oh! one of the new ones, I suppose.”

“No, sir,” I said, with voice trembling and my face working, for I was unnerved by the treatment I had just received and the dashing of my hopes; “I came to be engaged, but – but the gentleman upstairs turned me away.”

“Why?” said the elder man sharply.

“Because I had not been in the printing-office, sir.”

“Oh, of course!” he said, nodding. “Of course. We want lads accustomed to the trade, my man.”

“You should teach him the trade, Mr Ruddle,” said one of the young ladies quickly, and I darted a look of gratitude at her.

“Too busy, Miss Carr,” he said, smiling at her. “We don’t keep a printer’s school.”

“I’ll teach him,” whispered the young man eagerly, though I heard him; “I’ll teach him anything, if you’ll promise not to be so cruel.”

“What a bargain!” she replied, laughing; and she turned away.

“I don’t think we need keep you, my lad,” said the young man bitterly.

“Indeed!” said the other young lady; “why, I thought he was to carry our parcel of books?”

“But he is a strange boy, my dear young ladies,” said the elder man; “I’ll ring for one from the office.”

“No; don’t, pray!” said the lady addressed as Miss Carr quickly. “I don’t think we will carry the parcel. You will carry it for us, will you not?”

“Oh, yes, indeed I will!” I cried eagerly; and I stepped forward, for there was something very winning in the speakers voice.

“Stop a moment, my man,” said the elder gentleman rather sternly, while the younger stood biting his lips; “where do your father and mother live?”

Those words made something rise in my throat, and I looked wildly at him, but could not speak.

He did not see my face, for he had taken up a pen and drawn a memorandum slip towards him.

“Well; why don’t you speak?” he said sharply, and as he raised his eyes I tried, but could not get out a word, only pointed mutely to the shabby band of crape upon my cap.

“Ah!”

There was a deep sigh close by me, and I saw that the young lady addressed as Miss Carr was deadly pale, and for the first time I noticed that she was in deep mourning.

“My dear Miss Carr!” whispered the young man earnestly.

“Don’t speak to me for a minute,” she said in the same tone; and then I saw her face working and lip quivering as she gazed wistfully at me.

“Poor lad!” said the elder man abruptly. Then, “Your friends, my boy, your relatives?”

“I have none, sir,” I said huskily, “only an uncle, and I don’t know for certain where he lives.”

“But you don’t mean that you are alone in the world?” said the young man quickly, and he glanced at the lady as he spoke.

“Yes, sir,” I said quietly, for I had now recovered myself, “I am quite alone, and I want to get a situation to earn my living.”

The elder gentleman turned upon me and seemed to look me through and through.

“Now, look here, young fellow,” he said, “you are either a very unfortunate boy or a designing young impostor.”

“Mr Ruddle!” exclaimed Miss Carr indignantly; and I saw the young man’s eyes glitter as he gazed at her sweet, sad face, twenty times more attractive now than when she was speaking lightly a minute before.

“I don’t want to be harsh, my dear, but here we are obliged to be firm and business-like. Now, boy, answer me; have you been to a good school?”

“No, sir,” I said, speaking sharply now, for his use of the word “impostor” stung me; “I was educated at home.”

“Humph! where do you come from?”

“Rowford, sir.”

“Town on a tall hill?”

“No, sir,” I said in surprise; “Rowford is quite in a hole; but we lived four miles from Rowford, sir, on the Cawleigh road.”

“Then you know Leydon Wood.”

“Oh yes, sir! that’s where papa used to take me to collect specimens.”

“Humph! Don’t say papa, my boy. Boys who go into the world to get their living don’t speak of their papas. John Lister!”

“Wait a minute, Ruddle,” said the younger man, whose back was towards us; and I saw that he was leaning over Miss Carr and holding her hand. “If you wish it,” he whispered softly, “it shall be done.”

“I do wish it,” she said with an earnest look in her large eyes as she gazed kindly at me; and the young man turned round, flushed and excited.

I was shrinking away towards the door, pained and troubled, for I felt that I had no business there, when Mr Lister motioned me to stop, and said something to the elder gentleman.

He in turn screwed up his face, and gave the younger a comical look.

“Your father would not have done so, John Lister,” he said. “What am I to say, Miss Carr?”

For answer the young lady rose and went and laid her hands in one of his.

“If you please, Mr Ruddle,” she said in a low musical voice, “it will be a kindly act.”

“God bless you, my dear,” he said tenderly. “I believe if I were with you long you’d make me as much your slave as you have John Lister.”

“Then you will?”

“Yes, my dear, yes, if it is really as he says.”

She darted an intelligent look at me, and then hastily pulled down her crape veil as Mr Lister followed her to her chair.

“Come here, my lad,” said Mr Ruddle, in quiet business-like tones. “We want boys here, but boys used to the printing trade, for it does not answer our purpose to teach them; we have no time. But as you seem a sharp, respectable boy, and pretty well educated, you might, perhaps, be willing to try.”

“Oh, if you’ll try me, I’ll strive so hard to learn, sir!” I cried excitedly.

“I hope you will, my boy,” he said drily, “but don’t profess too much; and mind this, you are not coming here as a young gentleman, but as a reading-boy – to work.”

“Yes, sir. I want to work,” I said earnestly.

“That’s well. Now, look here. I want to know a little more about you. If, as you say, you came from near Rowford, you can tell me the names of some of the principal people there?”

“Yes, sir; there’s Doctor Heston, and the Reverend James Wyatt, and Mr Elton.”

“Exactly,” he said gruffly; and he opened a large book and turned over a number of pages. “Humph! here it is,” he said to himself, and he seemed to check off the names. “Now, look here, my man. What is the name of the principal solicitor at Rowford?”

“Mr Blakeford, sir,” I said with a shiver, lest he should want to write to him about me.

“Oh, you know him?” he said sharply.

“Yes, sir. He managed papa’s – my father’s – affairs,” I said, correcting myself.

“Then I’m sorry for your poor father’s affairs,” he said, tightening his lips. “That will do, my lad. You can come to work here. Be honest and industrious, and you’ll get on. Never mind about having been a gentleman, but learn to be a true man. Go and wait outside.”

I tried to speak. I wanted to catch his hands in mine. I wanted to fling my arms round Miss Carr, and kiss and bless her for her goodness. I was so weak and sentimental a boy then. But I had to fight it all down, and satisfy myself by casting a grateful glance at her as I went out to wait.

I was no listener, but I heard every word that passed as the ladies rose to go.

“Are you satisfied, my dear?” said Mr Ruddle.

“God bless you?” she said; and I saw her raise her veil and kiss him.

“God bless you, my dear!” he said softly. “So this little affair has regularly settled it all, eh? And you are to be John’s wife. Well, well, well, my dear, I’m glad of it, very glad of it. John, my boy, I would my old partner were alive to see your choice; and as for you, my child, you’ve won a good man, and I hope your sister will be as fortunate.”

“I hope I shall, Mr Ruddle,” said the other lady softly.

“If I were not sixty, and you nineteen, my dear, I’d propose for you myself,” he went on laughingly. “But come, come, I can’t have you giddy girls coming to our works to settle your affairs. There, be off with you, and you dine with us on Tuesday next. The old lady says you are to come early. I’m afraid John Lister here won’t be able to leave the office till twelve o’clock; but we can do without him, eh?”

“Don’t you mind what he says, Miriam,” said Mr Lister. “But stop, here’s the parcel. I’ll send it on.”

“No, no. Please let that youth carry it for us,” said Miss Carr.

“Anything you wish,” he whispered earnestly; and the next moment he was at the door.

“You’ll carry this parcel for these ladies,” he said; “and to-morrow morning be here at ten o’clock, and we’ll find you something to do.”

“Yes, sir. Thank you, sir,” I said eagerly; and taking the parcel, I followed the ladies into Holborn, and then along Oxford Street to a substantial row of houses near Cavendish Square, where the one I looked upon as my friend paused at a large door and held out her hand to me.

“I shall hope to hear from Mr Lister that you have got on well at the office,” she said in her sweet musical voice. “Recollect that you are my protégé, and I hope you will do me credit. I shall not forget to ask about you. You will try, will you not?”

“Oh yes,” I said hoarsely, “so hard – so very hard!”

“I believe you will,” she said, taking the parcel from my hand; “and now good-bye.”

The next moment I was standing alone upon the pavement, feeling as if a cloudiness had come over the day, while, as I looked down into my hand, it was to see there a bright new sovereign.

Chapter Sixteen.
Plans for the Future

I went straight back to Mr Revitts, and only when nearly there did I remember that I had not thought to ask about Mr Rowle. But I felt it did not matter now, for I had obtained a situation, and he could not be annoyed to find that I was coming to the same establishment.

Mr Revitts was enjoying himself when I reached his room; that is to say, he was sitting in his dingy old red-flannel shirt and his blue uniform trousers, with his sleeves rolled well up above the elbow, reading the police news in a daily paper and smoking a short black pipe, with the wreaths of smoke floating out of the open window.

“Here you are then, my lad,” he said, “just in time. You and I will go out and have a bit o’ something at the cookshop. Did you find your friend?”

“No, sir – no Mr Revitts,” I said, correcting myself, “I forgot to ask for him.”

He let his paper fall in his lap and stared hard at me.

“Now, look here, my lad,” he said, expelling a large cloud of smoke, “I don’t want you to commit yourself, and it’s my dooty to tell you that whatever you say will be – No, no, nonsense. Come, speak out. What are you laughing at? What have you been doing?”

Hereupon I told him my adventure, my eyes sparkling with delight.

“And a whole sovereign into the bargain!” he cried as I finished. “Let’s look at it.”

I handed him the bright new golden coin, and he span it up in the air, caught it dexterously, and bit it. Then he tried it three or four times on the table, as a shopman would a piece of money on a counter, and ended by making believe to thrust it into his pocket.

“It’s a good one,” he said, “and I think I shall stick to it for your board and lodging last night and this morning. What do you say?”

“I think you ought to be paid, sir,” I said eagerly, “for you were very good to me.”

He stared hard at me for a few moments, and then thrust the sovereign back in my hand.

“I’ve seen a good many boys in my time,” he said, “but I’m blessed if ever I run again one like you. Why, you’ve got plenty of pluck, or else you wouldn’t have run away; but of all the simple – well, I won’t say simple, but green – of the green chaps I ever did come across you are about the greenest.”

I flushed up far from that tint at his words, for there was the old complaint again about my greenness.

“Please, Mr Revitts, I’m very sorry I’m so green,” I said, looking at him wistfully; “perhaps it’s because I’ve always lived in the country.”

He stared harder at me.

“Come here,” he said sharply, and going to the window, he placed me between his knees, laid a great hand upon each of my shoulders grasping them firmly, and gazed straight into my eyes. “Look here, youngster,” he said angrily, “is it R or F? Are you trying to humbug me? Because, if so, it won’t do: I’m too old.”

“Humbug you, sir?” I said wonderingly. “I don’t know what you mean.”

“That you don’t,” he said, dropping his fierce way and sinking back smiling. “’Struth, what a boy you are!”

I gazed at him in a troubled way, for I felt hurt.

“I’m very sorry, Mr Revitts,” I said, “and I hope you don’t think I would do anything to deceive you,” for that “R or F” puzzled me.

“Deceive me? Not you, my boy. Why, you couldn’t deceive a sparrer or a hoyster. Why, you’re as transparent as a pane of glass. I can see right through you and out on the other side.”

“I’m afraid I am very stupid, sir,” I said sadly. “I’ll try to learn to be more clever. I don’t know much, only about books, and natural history, and botany, but I’ll try very hard not – not to be so – so – green.”

“Why, bless your young heart, where have you been all your life? You’re either as cunning as – No, you ain’t, you really are as innocent as a lamb.”

“I’ve always been at home with papa and mamma, sir.”

“Sir, be hanged! My name’s William Revitts; and if you and me’s going to be good friends, my boy, you’ll drop that sir-ing and mistering, and call me plain Bill.”

“Should you like it, sir, if I did?” I asked anxiously.

“No, sir, I shouldn’t. Yes, I should. Now then, is it to be friends or enemies?”

“Oh, friends, please,” I said, holding out my hand.

“Then there’s mine, young Antony,” he cried seizing it in his great, fingers. “And mind, I’m Bill, or old Bill, whichever you like.”

“I’m sure – Bill, I should be glad to be the best of friends,” I said, “for I have none.”

“Oh, come now, you said that Polly was very good to you.”

“What, Mary? Oh yes!”

“Well, then, that’s one. But, I say, you know you mustn’t be so precious innocent.”

“Mustn’t I, sir?”

“What!” he cried, bringing his hand down crash on the table.

“Mustn’t I, Bill?”

“That’s better. No: that you mustn’t. I seem to look upon you as quite an old friend since you lived so long with my Polly. But, I say, your education has been horribly neglected. You’re quite a baby to the boys up here at your age.”

“But papa was so anxious that I should learn everything,” I said, as I thought of Mr Ruddle’s words, “and we had lessons every day.”

“Hah! Yes; but you can’t learn everything out o’ books,” he continued, looking at me curiously. “You never went away to school, then?”

“No. I was going in a month or two.”

“Hah! and it was put off. Well, we can’t help it now, only you mustn’t be so jolly easy-going. Everybody here will glory in taking you in.”

“Do you mean cheating me?”

“That’s just what I do mean. Why, some chaps would have nailed that sov like a shot, and you’d never have seen it again. You see, I’m in the police, and we couldn’t stoop to such a thing, but I know lots o’ men as would say as a sov was no use to a boy like you, and think as they ought to take care of it for you.”

“Well, wouldn’t that be right, Mr Revitts?” I said.

“No, it wouldn’t, young greenhorn,” he cried sharply, “because they’d take care of it their way.”

“Greenhorn?” I said eagerly. “Oh, that’s what you mean by my being green! You mean ignorant and unripe in the world’s ways.”

“That’s just what I do mean,” he cried, slapping me on the shoulder. “Brayvo! that’s the result of my first lesson,” he continued admiringly. “Why, I’m blessed if I don’t think that if I had you here six months, and took pains, I could make a man of you.”

“Oh, I wish you would,” I cried excitedly. “I do so want to be a true, good man – one such as papa used to speak of – one who could carve his way to a noble and honourable career, and grow to be loved and venerated and held in high esteem by the world at large. Oh, I would try so hard – I’d work night and day, and feel at last, that I had not tried in vain.”

“He-ar! he-ar! Brayvo, brayvo, youngster! Well done our side! That’s your style!” he cried, clapping his hands and stamping his feet as I stopped short, flushed and excited with the ideas that had come thronging to my brain, and then gazed at him in a shamefaced and bashful manner. “That’s your sort, my boy, I like that. I say, did your father teach you that sorter thing.”

“Yes. Mr Rev. – Yes, Bill.”

“I say, your par, as you called him, wasn’t a fool.”

“My papa,” I said proudly, “I mean my dear father, was the best and kindest of men.”

“That I’ll lay sixpence he was. Why, I was feeling quite out of heart about you, and thinking you such a hinnocent young goose that I shouldn’t know how to help you. Why, lookye here, I’ve been kicking about in the world ever since I was ten, and been in the police six years, and I couldn’t make a speech like that.”

“Couldn’t you, sir – Mr – I mean Bill?”

“No, that I couldn’t. Why, I tell you what. You and I’ll stick together and I don’t know what we mightn’t make of you at last – p’r’aps Lord Mayor o’ London. Or, look here, after a few years we might get you in the police.”

“In the police?” I faltered.

“To be sure, and you being such a scholard and writing such a hand – I know it, you know. Lookye here,” he continued, pulling out a pocket-book, from one of the wallets in which he drew a note I had written for Mary, “I say, you writing such a hand, and being well up in your spelling, you’d rise like a air balloon, and get to be sergeant, and inspector, and perhaps superintendent, and wear a sword! You mark my words, youngster; you’ve got a future before you.”

“Do you think so?”

“I just do. I like you, young Antony, hang me if I don’t; and if you stick to me I’ll teach you all I know.”

“Will you?” I said eagerly.

“Well, all I can. Just hand me that paper o’ tobacco. Thankye. I’ll have just one more pipe, and then we’ll go to dinner.”

He filled and lit his pipe, and went on talking.

“First and foremost, don’t you get trying to smoke.”

“No, I will not,” I said.

“That’s right. It’s all very well for men, a little of it; but I don’t like to see boys at it, as too many tries just now. I often sees ’em on my beat, and I never feel so jolly happy as when I come across one looking white after it about the gills, and so sick he can’t hold his head straight up. But, as I was a-saying, you stick to me and I’ll teach you all I can, and I know two or three things,” he continued, closing one eye and opening it again.

“You must, sir.”

“Yes; there’s some clever chaps I have to deal with sometimes – roughs and thieves and the like; but they have to get up very early in the morning to take me in.”

“Do they, sir – Bill?” I said wonderingly.

“There, now you’re getting innocent again,” he said sharply. “You don’t mean to tell me as you don’t understand that?”

“Oh yes, I do: you mean that they would have to get up very early to master you – say at daybreak.”

“What a young innocent you are,” he cried, laughing; and then seeing my pained look, he slapped me on the shoulder again. “It’s all right, my boy. You can’t help it; and you’ll soon learn all these things. I know a lot, but so do you – a sight o’ things I don’t. Why, I’ll be bound to say you could write a long letter without making a single mistake in the spelling.”

“Yes, I think I could,” I said innocently. “Both papa and mamma took great pains with me over that.”

“Look at that, now!” he said. “Why, I couldn’t write two lines in my pocket-book without putting down something as the sergeant would chaff.”

“Chaff?” I said, “cut-up stuff for horses?”

“Yes: that’s it,” he said, grinning. “Stuff as they cut up. There, you’ll soon know what chaff is, my lad. But, you know, all the same, and speaking quite fair, I do maintain as spelling ain’t square.”

“Not square?”

“I mean fair and square and above-board. Them as invented spelling couldn’t have been very clever, or they’d have made everything spelt as it sounded. Why, it only seems natural to spell doctor’s stuff f-i-z-z-i-k, and here you have to stick in p’s, and h’s, and y’s, and s’s, and c’s, as ain’t wanted at all.”

“It is puzzling, certainly,” I said.

“Puzzling? Puzzling ain’t nothing to it. I can write a fair round hand, and spell fast enough my way. Our sergeant says there isn’t a man on our station as can write such a nice looking report; but when it comes to the spelling – there, I won’t tell you what he said about that!”

“But you could soon improve your spelling.”

“Think so?” he said eagerly. “Oh no, I don’t fancy we could.”

“I am sure you could,” I said. “The best way is to do dictation.”

“Dictation? What, ordering about?”

“Oh no; not that sort of dictation. I mean for me to read to you from a book and you write it down, and then I mark all the misspelt words, and you write them down and learn them.”

“Look at that now!” he exclaimed. “To be sure, that’s the way. Now, you know, I bought a spelling-book, that didn’t seem to do no good; so I bought a pocket dictionary, and that was such a job to go through, so full of breakneck words as no one never heard of before, that I give that up. Why, you ain’t innocent after all. Would you mind trying me?”

“Mind! no,” I cried; “we could use either a slate or paper.”