I was receiving my first lessons in the fact that there is as much good-will as ill-will in the world – in other words, that there really is, as has been so poetically expressed, a silver lining to every cloud; and I gladly availed myself of Mr Hallett’s kind offer, following him to his frame, as they called the skeleton desks that supported the cases, and there sitting down close by him to partake of some bread and meat which he brought out carefully wrapped in a clean white napkin.

“Don’t be afraid, my boy,” he said, “make a good meal; and I should advise you, for the present, to bring your dinner with you and eat it here. Better than going into the streets.”

He then ate his own dinner quickly, and without taking the slightest notice of me beyond seeing once that I had a sufficiency of the bread and meat, but took out an oblong memorandum-book, and began busily drawing and making some calculation.

As he worked at this, I sat and had a good look at him, and could see that his large, massive head was covered with crisp dark hair that was already slightly sprinkled with grey. From time to time he raised his eyes from his book to look up, as if diving into the distance, or trying to catch some idea that was wandering away from him, and at such moments his deeply set eyes had a curiously intense look about them, while his forehead was deeply marked with thoughtful lines.

I don’t think he was more than thirty, but he looked, so to speak, vigorously old, or, rather, worn like some piece of steel that has been used hard, but has grown sharper and more elastic by that use. He was a tall, well-made man, but thin and spare, giving the idea of one who was ascetic in his habits and devoting himself to some particular end.

He did not speak to me again, and I was not sorry, for there was that in his face and ways that rather repelled than attracted, and I somehow felt that if he, in his quiet, firm way, were angry with me, I should be more alarmed than by the noisy bullying of Mr Grimstone, the overseer.

Two o’clock was signalled by the coming back of the compositors, who resumed their white aprons and rolled up their sleeves, when the sharp clicking noise went on as before. Mr Hallett, at the first entrance of one of his fellow-workmen, had shut his book with a snap, and thrust it into his breast, rolled up the napkin, and then, turning to me with a nod, —

“Two o’clock, my boy,” he said. “Get on with your work.”

As he spoke he resumed his own, and I went back to my case.

I had hardly been there ten seconds, and was diligently making sure which was the compartment containing the letter u, which had a terribly strong resemblance to the letter n, when Mr Grimstone suddenly pounced on me from round the end of the case. I say pounced, for it was so wonderfully like a cat coming upon a mouse. He seemed surprised and disappointed at finding me there, though I did not comprehend his looks then, and after staring hard for a moment or two, he went away.

The hours glided away, and I was so interested in what I was doing, that I hardly noticed the lapse of time, while, long before the afternoon was past, the work the men were engaged upon seemed so attractive that I felt impelled to imitate them by trying to pick up the letters forming various words, and then replacing them in the different boxes.

The first time it was rather difficult, but the second time I got on pretty well, and I was just beginning for the third time, when Mr Hallett came round my way and caught me in the act. I felt very guilty, but he seemed to approve, and walked away, to return directly with a little sliding steel thing, such as the men were using.

“Here’s a stick, my boy; try and place the letters, nick uppermost, in that.”

I took the stick, as he called it, and found that as fast as I placed a letter in, it seemed to do its best to jump out again; then one letter got upon another, or two or three appeared to quarrel and join in a regular squabble, so that their awkwardness and utter refusal to lie quietly side by side at last put me in a profuse perspiration.

I was busily fumbling about when Mr Grimstone, whose voice I had often heard scolding different men, came round, saw what I was doing, and snatched the composing-stick away.

“Tchah! What waste of time! Come along here,” he cried angrily, and I followed him to his glass office, where he sat down upon a worn stool. “Now then,” he said, sharply, “I’ve decided to give you a trial.”

I remember thinking that he was very stupid to assume that he had full authority, when I knew that he had not, but, of course, I was silent.

“And now mind this, sir: I am overseer here, and what I say I will have done, I have done. You hear?”

“Yes, sir,” I said.

“And now we understand one another.”

Saying this, he bounced down from his stool again, and led me to the end of the large room and through a door into a dirty place with a great leaden sink, water, and brushes, and a pot containing some liquid.

Jem Smith was there, having just brought in a long narrow tray containing a column of type.

“Here, Smith, show this boy how to wash a galley; and see that he does it well.”

Jem Smith grinned at me as soon as we were left alone, and I saw plainly enough that he meant to have some compensation for the box on the ear he had received; but I tried hard to contain myself, and meant to submit patiently to anything that might follow.

“Here, ketch hold o’ that galley,” he said sharply, “and look here, young man, don’t you get trying to play the sneak here, and begin getting old Hallett to take your part. He’s only a sneak, and everybody here hates him ’cause he won’t take his beer. You keep away from him, or it’ll be the worse for you. I’ve only got to tell the other boys, and they’ll make it so warm for you as you’ll wish as you’d never come here. Now, then, why don’t you ketch hold o’ that galley?”

“I don’t know what a galley is,” I said sturdily.

“Don’t know what a galley is,” he said, imitating my way of speaking; “you’re a pretty sort of fellow to come and get work at a printing-office. There, ketch holt, stoopid: that’s the galley; put it here, and you needn’t be so precious frightened of getting your fingers black. There’s the brush, dip it, and fetch all that ink off.”

I took the brush, dipped it in the liquor in the pot, and on brushing the surface of the type found that the strong solution easily brought off all the black ink; and I ended as instructed, by thoroughly rinsing the type and placing it to drain.

This done, I had to wash several more galleys, with the result that I was made tolerably black; and to make matters worse, my companion brought in a black roller of some soft material, and dabbed it against my cheek.

I plucked up my spirit and felt ready to strike out, but somehow I kept my anger down, and after washing the roller in turn, I was allowed to dry my hands and clean my face, which Jem Smith persuaded me to do with the strong solution of potash, making it tingle smartly; and, but for the rapid application of pure water, I believe the skin would have been made sore.

This seemed to afford the young ruffian intense delight, and taking up the brush, he dipped it in the potash and tried to brush my hair.

I retreated from him as far as I could, but he got between me and the door, and with the malignant pleasure felt by some boys in persecuting those who are weaker than themselves, he caught me by the collar.

“Just you call out, that’s all,” he said, “and I’ll half kill you. Hold still, you little sneak. You make so much noise as’ll reach outside, and I’ll jump on you.”

We were close beside the lead sink and the pot of solution-lye, as the printers call it; and now a new idea seemed to come into the spiteful young wretch’s mind, for, throwing down the brush, he seized hold of me with both hands, and as we struggled, being much the stronger, he got behind me, thrust his knee violently into my back, and brought me down kneeling before the great earthen pot. And now for the first time I saw what he intended to do, namely, to thrust my face and head into the black caustic solution, and, in spite of my resistance, he got it down lower and lower.

I might have shrieked out for help, and I might have cried for mercy; but, moved partly by his threats, partly by shame, I refrained, and made use of all my strength to escape, but in vain; strive as I would, he forced me down lower and lower, and then by one quick effort placed a hand on the back of my head and thrust it right into the filthy water.

Fortunately for me it was but a momentary affair, and the next instant he allowed me to struggle up and run blindly to the sink, where, perhaps, a little alarmed by his success, he filled a bowl with clean water, leaving the tap running, as I strove to sluice off the blinding, tingling fluid.

I was in the midst of this, and with soaked necktie and collar, kept on bathing my face and hair, when I heard Mr Grimstone’s voice at the door, and hastily thrust my fingers into my ears to clear them.

“What’s he doing?”

“Washing hisself, sir.”

“Washing himself?”

“Yes, sir; he said it was such a nasty dirty job to brush galleys that he must have a good clean.”

“Where’s the towel?” I said blindly, for my eyes smarted so that I dare not open them, and they grew so painful that I hurried once more to the sink and bathed them with clear water before pressing my hair as dry as I could, and then using my handkerchief to wipe my face.

I now opened my eyes, and saw that there was a very dirty jack-towel on a roller behind the door, to which I hastily ran.

“Look here, sir,” said Mr Grimstone, as I hastily rubbed away at my head; “we can’t have these goings-on here. What have you been doing?”

“I think he’s been using the lye, sir,” cried the young hypocrite. “I told him it was only for the type.”

“It isn’t true, sir,” I cried indignantly; when a compositor came up to the door, and Mr Grimstone was called away.

The moment he was gone, Smith darted at me, and thrust his doubled fist hard against my face.

“You say a word agen me,” he said, “and I’ll half kill yer. I’ll smash yer, that I will, so look out.”

He went out of the place, leaving me hot and indignant, rubbing away at my tingling head, which I at length got pretty dry and combed before a scrap of glass stuck by four tacks in a corner; and when I had finished it was in time to see the men just returning from their tea and resuming their work.

Not being told to do anything else, I went back to the case, and continued to learn the boxes, not much the worse for my adventure, only feeling uncomfortably wet about the neck.

At last the clock pointed to eight, and, following the example of the rest, I hurried out of the great office, eager to get back to Mr Revitts before he went on duty, for I wanted to ask him a question.

I got up to the street in Pentonville just as he was coming out of the house, and in answer to his “Halloa! here you are, then,” I caught hold of his arm.

“Bill!” I exclaimed, panting with excitement, “can you teach me how to fight?”

Chapter Nineteen.
William Revitts On Lessons

Sometime passed before William Revitts replied in full to my question. He had, of course, asked me what I meant, and I had explained to him the treatment I had received, but his duties and mine kept us a great deal apart. One night, however, when he had returned to day-duty, he was seated in his shirt-sleeves talking to me, and said all of a sudden: “Yes, I could teach you how to fight, Antony.”

“And will you?” I said eagerly.

“Give me my ’bacco and pipe off the chimney-piece.”

I handed them to him, and waited patiently while he filled and lighted his pipe, and then all at once, along with a puff of smoke, he exclaimed:

“No, I sha’n’t. Fighting’s all blackguardism, as I know as well as most men. I’ve had the taking up of some of the beauties as go in for it, and beauties they are. I don’t say as if I was you I wouldn’t give that Master Jem Smith an awful crack for himself if he meddled with me again; but I should do it when I was in a passion, and when he’d hurt me. You’ll hit as hard again then, and serve him right. Now let’s have a turn at spelling.”

We did “have a turn at spelling,” and I dictated while Revitts wrote, varying the task with bits of advice to me – absurd enough, some of them, while others were as shrewd and full of common-sense.

By that time I had rapidly begun to fish up odds and ends of experience, such as stood me in good stead, and, in spite of what was really little better than contemptible persecution on the overseer’s part, I was making some little way at the printing-office.

I shall not soon forget the feeling of pride with which on the first Friday night I heard my name called out by a business-like clerk with a book, after he had summoned everyone in the room, and received from him a little paper-bag containing my wages.

“You haven’t been full time, Grace,” he said, entering the sum paid in a book; “but the firm said I was to pay you for the week, as you were a beginner.”

As soon as I thought I was unobserved, I counted out seven shillings, a sum that showed that I was a little favoured, for honestly I believe that I was not worth that amount to my employers.

Hardly had I made sure of my good fortune than I had a visit from Jem Smith, who came up grinning.

“Now, then,” he said, “old Grim’s gone for the night, and you’ve got to come down and pay your footing.”

I stared at him in my ignorance, but, fully under the impression that something unpleasant was meant, I resolutely determined to stay where I was, and I was saved from further persecution by Mr Hallett coming up, which was the signal for Jem Smith to sneak off. I asked Hallett what was meant, and he explained to me that it was a custom for working men on entering a new place to pay for some beer for their fellow-workmen.

“But don’t you pay a penny to the young wolves,” he said, and I determined that I would not.

I was well on in the second week, and during the intervening days I had been set to every dirty and objectionable task Mr Grimstone could invent for me, but I did them patiently and well. I had seen nothing of my employers, and but little of Mr Hallett, who seemed too busy to take much notice of me; but he somehow had a knack of turning up in emergencies, just when I required help and counsel, showing that he kept an eye upon me for my good.

I noticed as I sat beneath a frame eating my dinner in the composing-room that he always employed a good deal of his time in drawing or calculating, and I found, too, that he was no great favourite with his fellow-workmen, who nicknamed him the steam-engine, because he worked so rapidly and did so much. It was very plain, too, that the overseer hated him, giving him the most difficult and unpleasant tasks, but they were always willingly done by Mr Hallett, who was too good a workman to be spared.

I had just completed the washing of some very dirty type one day, and, according to orders, made my way up to Mr Grimstone’s glass case, very dirty and grubby-looking, no doubt, when I stared with surprise on seeing there before me a little cleanly-shaven man who, except in clothes, was the exact counterpart of Mr Rowle.

Somehow or other I had been so occupied, and my mind so intent upon the task given me, that I had thought no more about asking to see him; and now, here he was, Mr Rowle’s twin brother, in angry altercation with the overseer, while Jem Smith stood in the door. The latter had been let off a good many dirty, tasks of late, and I had succeeded to them, but the promotion he had received did not seem to have been attended with success.

“Now look hero, Grimstone,” the little man was saying, “you needn’t bark at me, for I don’t care a pinch of snuff for all your snarls. I asked you to send me up the best boy you had, to read, and you sent me your worst.”

“Mr Rowle, it is false, sir.”

“And I say it is true, and that you did it all out of your crass obstinacy and determination to be as disagreeable as you can to everybody in the place.”

“I sent you up one of my best boys, Mr Rowle.”

“And I say you sent me your very worst – as thick-headed, stupid a dunce as ever entered the place. Look here,” he continued, flourishing a sheet of manuscript in one hand, a long slip of printed paper in the other. “He can’t read that plain piece of writing, and as to the print, why, he’s little better.”

“No such thing, sir,” said Mr Grimstone, fuming.

“Don’t tell me ‘no such thing,’” said the little man fiercely. “Why, the biggest fool in the office would do better. Here, boy,” he cried to me, as I stood there with my hands as black as dirty type could make them; “come here.”

I went up to him.

“He’s no good,” said Mr Grimstone sharply. “He has only just come.”

“Don’t talk to me, sir,” cried Mr Rowle angrily. “You can’t pick out a decent boy, so I must do it myself. Here, boy, read that out aloud.”

I took the piece of paper with trembling hands, doubting my own power to read the lines of crabbed writing, and feeling that even if I could read it I should give dire offence to the overseer by so doing; but I could not help myself, and raising the piece of manuscript written closely on a sheet of ruled foolscap, I saw that it was just such a legal document as I had often copied at Mr Blakeford’s. In fact, something of the old feeling of dread that I used to experience when receiving such a paper from him made a huskiness come in my throat, but clearing my voice, I began:

“‘And the aforesaid deponent also saith that in such a case it would be necessary for the said lessor, his heirs, executors, administrators, and assigns, to make over and deliver, whenever and wheresoever the aforesaid lessee, his heirs, executors, administrators or assigns should desire him so to do – ”

“Stop!” said the little man tightening his lips and taking a pinch of snuff. “You did not read that exactly as it’s written there.”

“No, sir,” I said, “‘executors, administrators, and assigns,’ were all contracted.”

“There!” he exclaimed, turning to the overseer triumphantly, “What did I say? Here’s the first boy I meet, fresh from the lye-tub, and he reads it straight off without a blunder, and better than you could have read it yourself. Here, boy, read that.”

He took a letter from his pocket, written in a terribly puzzling hand, and placed it before me.

I took it, hesitated for a moment, and then began:

“‘My dear sir, – I have given the most careful consideration to your proposal, and I am quite willing to – to – to – to – ’ If you please, sir, I’m very sorry,” I stammered, “but I can’t make out that word.”

“No, boy, nor I neither. I don’t believe the writer can. There, go and wash those dirty hands,” he continued, snatching the letter from me.

“No: stop!” cried Mr Grimstone wrathfully; “I want that boy here.”

“Then you may take your great clever noodle, Jem Smith,” said the little man.

“Mr Rowle, I will not have my rules and regulations broken in this way, sir.”

“Hang you and your rules,” said the little man. “Have a pinch? No? Then let it alone.”

“I cannot and will not spare that boy,” cried Mr Grimstone, motioning away the snuff-box.

For answer the little man tightened his lips, snapped-to the lid of his snuff-box, hastily took a pinch, snapped his fingers in the overseer’s face, and taking me by the shoulder, marched me before him towards the door, and past Mr Hallett’s frame.

“Here, get your jacket, my lad,” said the little man. “You can wash your hands upstairs.”

Mr Hallett nodded to me and looked, as I thought, pleased as I passed him, and preceding my new taskmaster, I went up to the next floor, where he led me to a glass case, exactly like that occupied by Mr Grimstone and the reader in his room, the sides being similarly decorated with slips of paper hanging from nails.

He showed me where to wash, and, this done, I was soon by his side, reading steadily on to him various pieces of manuscript, while, spectacles on nose, he pored over and made corrections on the margins of the printed slips of paper that were constantly being brought to him by a youth who printed them from the column galleys at a small hand-press.

I got on pretty well, for my home training had made manuscript easy to me. In fact, I had often copied pieces for my father, containing letters from various naturalist friends, while my sojourn at Mr Blakeford’s had made anything of a legal character perfectly clear.

That night, when it was time to go, and I had had no greater unpleasantness to contend with than several severe fits of sneezing brought on when the little man used his snuff-box, I timidly asked him if I was wanted the next day, for as yet no opportunity had served for making known my knowledge of his brother.

“Wanted!” he cried; “why, I had serious thoughts of locking you up, boy, so as to make sure of you to-morrow. Wanted! Yes: I’ve got you, and I mean to keep you; and if Grimstone says another word – but only let him. Look here: you are very stupid yet, but you’ll soon improve; and mind this, come with clean hands and face to-morrow, and clean apron.”

“Yes, sir,” I said, and then I hesitated.

“Well, what is it?”

“Please, sir, you are Mr Jabez Rowle, are you not?”

“Yes, and what then?” he said shortly.

“Only, sir, that Mr Peter Rowle, who is a friend of mine, said I might mention his name to you.”

“Oh, he did, did he? Well, he need not have taken the trouble. There, be off, and mind you are here in good time.”

This was damping, especially as Mr Jabez Rowle took snuff viciously, and stood staring before him, tapping his box, and muttering angrily, in which state I left him, and made the best of my way home.

I was in good time next morning, but, all the same, there sat Mr Jabez Rowle in his glass case waiting for me, and as I entered and said “Good-morning, sir,” he just nodded shortly and pointed with the penholder in his hand to a piece of paper.

“Go on?” he said; and, taking it up, I began to read.

“Not quite so fast, and say par when you come to a fresh paragraph.”

I read on, making a good many blunders in my anxiety to be right, but, I presume, getting on very well, for Mr Rowle found but little fault, as he seemed to dart his pen down at every error in the slip proofs before him – turned letters, p’s where q’s should be, and b’s for d’s; c’s were often in the place of e’s; and then there were omissions, repetitions, absence of spaces or points, a score of different little omissions on the compositor’s part; and, besides all these, the busy pen made marks and signs that were cabalistic to me.

This had gone on about a couple of days, and I was reading away to him what I believed was a prayer in a chancery-bill, when Mr Jabez suddenly laid down his pen, took out his snuff-box, and said, looking me full in the face, “How’s Peter?”

“I beg your pardon, sir?”

“I say, how’s Peter?”

“How’s Peter, sir?”

“Don’t pretend to be stupid, boy, when you’re as sharp as a needle,” he cried, tapping the desk angrily with his snuff-box. “Didn’t you say you knew my brother Peter?”

“Oh yes, sir! he was very kind to me, but I haven’t seen him for some weeks. He was quite well then.”

“Humph! look old?”

“He looks very much like you, sir.”

“Then he does look old. We’re very fond of one another, boy, but we; always quarrel; so we never meet. ‘And your petitioner furthermore sayeth – ’”

“I beg your pardon, sir.”

“‘And your petitioner furthermore sayeth’ – get on, boy: go on.”

I dashed at the manuscript again, for he had resumed his work, and read on to the end, for he made no further inquiries about his brother.

I soon grew quite accustomed to reading, and found that Mr Jabez Rowle meant what he said about keeping to me, for I was regularly installed as reading-boy, and, as I have said, I was delighted with the change. I often met Jem Smith, and, from his looks, it was evident that he bore me no good will, and, to be frank, I felt rather revengeful for his treatment. One day, during the dinner hour, I went down into the lower part before the men came back, and, after getting some slips which Mr Rowle had told me to have ready for him, my enemy pounced upon me, coming in at the door just as I was about to leave.

“Now I’ve got yer, then,” he cried, with a malicious grin, and, rushing at me, I had only time to evade the first onslaught by running round the frames, when a hot chase ensued, ending in my being brought to bay, and receiving blow after blow from my stronger antagonist.

I did all I could to defend myself, till, closing with me, he held me tight with one arm, and struck me so cruelly in the face, that it roused me to greater efforts, and, after a short wrestle, I was free.

It was but a moment’s respite before he dashed at me again, and, in my rage and desperation, I struck out at him so fiercely that my fist caught him full between the eyes, making him stagger and catch at the first object he could to save himself, and the result was that he pulled over a full case of small type. There was a crash, I uttered a cry, and some twenty pounds of type were scattered in confusion all over the floor.

Before I had recovered from my horror, the door was thrown open, and Mr Grimstone came hurrying in.

“What’s this – what’s this?” he cried.

“Please, sir, Grace was playing larks with one of the cases, and he let it fall.”

“Then Mr Grace shall soon find out what it is to destroy the property of the firm in this wanton way,” he cried.

“Indeed, sir – ” I began.

“Not a word, sir – not a word!” he cried. “Smith, go about your work. You, Grace, pick up every bit of that pie at once.”

“But please, sir, I did not knock it down, and Mr Rowle is waiting for me.”

“Pick it up, sir.”

“But Mr Rowle – ”

“Pick it up, sir.”

I was so hot and excited that I was about to declare angrily that I would not, when I caught Mr Hallett’s eyes gazing fixedly at me, and without a word, but feeling half-choked with anger and indignation, I fetched a galley and began to pick up the fallen type.

I had not been engaged in my uncongenial task many minutes before Mr Jabez Rowle came down to see where I was, and I noticed that there was quite a triumphant look in Mr Grimstone’s eyes as he said I must stay and pick up all the type, the matter being compromised on the understanding that as soon as the metal was picked up I was to resume my reading upstairs, and, by Mr Grimstone’s orders, stay in every dinner-time and get to the office an hour sooner every morning till I had set up and distributed the whole of the pie.

How I dwelt on the injustice of that task! It was one which seemed to give Mr Grimstone great satisfaction, for it took my inexperienced fingers many weeks, and I had to toil very hard. But all the same, it was no waste of time, for it gave me dexterity in handling type such as I should not otherwise have had.

I had suffered a great deal from anxiety lest some morning Mr Blakeford should step into the office and claim me; for, unpleasant as were my dealings with Mr Grimstone, Jem Smith, and through the latter with several of the other boys, I thoroughly enjoyed my present existence. Revitts was very kind, and, in spite of his sharp abruptness, I did not dislike quaint old Mr Jabez Rowle, who seemed never to be happy unless he was correcting proofs.

My dread arose from the thought that Revitts might in some communication to Mary be the cause of her naming my whereabouts to the lawyer. Then I was afraid that Mr Ruddle might write down and make inquiries. Lastly, that Mr Jabez Rowle might mention me in writing to his brother. But I grew more reassured as it became evident that Mr Ruddle had not written, while Mr Jabez Rowle said one day, just in the middle of some corrections:

“Ah, I’m very fond of Peter, so I never write to him.”

Then, too, I found that Mr Revitts never wrote to Mary without, in a half-bashful way, showing me the letter.

“Lookye here,” he would say, “we said we’d help one another, lad. Some o’ these days you’ll want to write such a letter as this here, and so you may as well see how it’s done. Then you can just shove your pen through where the spellin’ ain’t quite square, and I’ll write it out again. I don’t know as it’s quite right to let her get thinking as I’m such a tip-topper at spellin’, but she came the same game with me over the writing, making me think as she’d improved wonderful, when it was you; so it’s six o’ one and half-a-dozen o’ t’other. What do you say?”

“I don’t think Mary meant to deceive you, Bill,” I said. “Poor girl, she had to work very hard, and her hands were not used to holding a pen. I don’t suppose she ever thought of saying who wrote for her. There’s nothing to be ashamed of in trying to improve your spelling.”

“No, there ain’t, is there, lad?”

“Nothing at all. Mr Hallett says we go on learning all our lives.”

“Hah! I suppose we do. What would you do then?”

“I should tell Mary I helped you.”

“So I will – so I will,” he said, in his quiet simple way; for as sure as the subject Mary was in question, all William Revitts’ sharp police-constable ways dropped off, and he was as simple and smiling as a child.

“Give my love to her, Bill,” I said.

He looked heavily and steadily at me for a few moments, and then in a very stupid way he began:

“I say, youngster, do you think Mary is fond of you?”

“I’m sure she is – very,” I said.

He fidgeted in his chair, and then continued:

“And you like her?”

“Very, very, very much. She was horribly cross at first, but towards the last nobody could have been kinder.”

“I say, how old are you?”

“Between thirteen and fourteen,” I said.

“Ah, to be sure; of course, lad, so you are,” he said, brightening up and shaking hands. “Yes, I’ll give your love to her. I say, boy, it won’t be long first,” he continued, rubbing his hands.

“Won’t it?” I said, easily divining what he meant.

“No, not long now, for we’ve been engaged a precious long while.”