Toilers of Babylon: A Novel. Farjeon Benjamin Leopold

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ badly." Timothy paused and sighed, and his face became grave. "I used to stop up late at night to study, and I picked up a lot. Dr. Porter seemed always to have a peck of trouble on him, but he helped me, too, a bit, by lending me books, and Mrs. Porter helped me as well. I was never so happy before. I bought a new suit of clothes, as I've told you, sir. Everything was going on swimmingly till last week." Timothy paused again.

      "What happened then, Timothy?"

      "I went to bed very late; I'd had a good hard night of it, and I had to get up very early to do something I wanted to Miss Emily's bit of garden."

      "Miss Emily is the doctor's daughter?"

      "Yes, sir. I don't know how long I'd been asleep, but it was dark when I woke up all of a sudden with a singing in my ears, and a lot of other sounds that I can't describe. Then I heard some one sing out 'Fire!' I'm pretty quick, sir, as a rule, and I got into my old clothes in less than no time, and ran out of the room. Sure enough, the house was on fire. Miss Emily was crying for her mother, and Dr. Porter was running about like a madman. I raced to Mrs. Porter's room, and helped to get her out, and then we stood and watched the fire burning up the house. There wasn't a drop of water except what we could get from the pump, and that came out with a dribble. A fire-engine came up when it was too late. By that time the house was a mass of flames. There wasn't one bit of furniture saved, nor a book. All their clothes were burnt, and everything they had, except what they stood upright in. My new suit of clothes went too, but I didn't think of that; I was too sorry for Miss Emily and her mother and father. We had a dreadful time, and when daylight came the whole house and everything in it was a heap of ashes. Some friends took Dr. Porter and his wife and Miss Emily away, and I hung about, almost dazed out of my senses. I saved one thing, though-this fowl here, and the basket. The next day I saw Dr. Porter. 'My lad,' he said, 'I owe you a week's wages; here's your florin; I'm a ruined man, and you must look out for another situation.' He spoke nothing but the truth, sir; he was ruined; he wasn't insured for a penny. I wouldn't take the florin; I told him about this fowl that I'd saved, and I asked him to let me have that instead. 'Take it and welcome,' he said, 'and your florin too.' But I wouldn't. I wanted badly to see Miss Emily to tell her how sorry I was, and to wish her good-bye, but Dr. Porter had sent her off I don't know where, so I had to come away without seeing her. That's the whole story, sir."

      "A sad story, Timothy."

      "Yes, sir, you may well say that."

      "What are you going to do now?"

      "That's what's puzzling me, sir." And Timothy cast a wistful look at the bookseller.

      "Take this book in your hand. Open it anywhere. Now read."

      Timothy opened the book, and with great fluency read from the top of the page.

      "That will do," said Mr. Loveday. "You can write, you say. Sit down there; here's paper, here's a pen. Now write what I say. 'The world is filled with fools and bunglers, and a few clever men. A small proportion of these clever men grow rich, because they are that way inclined; the majority die poor, because they are not entirely sordid-minded. The fools and bunglers grow so in a small measure from inheritance, in a large measure from indolence and a lack of judicious training.' Give it to me."

      He examined the paper carefully.

      "Ah! Writing tolerably good. Not a bad style; improvement will come by industry. I think you have that, Timothy Chance."

      "I think I have, sir."

      "Three mistakes in spelling. Bunglers is not spelled b u n g e l. Inheritance is not spelled without an h and with two e's in the last syllable. Judicious is not spelled j e w. For the rest, all right. A bit of arithmetic, eh?"

      "Yes, sir."

      "Be ready with your pen and paper. I buy a parcel of twenty-eight books at auction for three and sixpence; three I sell for waste-paper, sixteen at twopence each, five at threepence each, two at fourpence, and one for a shilling. What's the result?"

      "You lay out three and sixpence, sir," said Timothy, almost instantaneously; he was sharp at most things, but especially sharp at figures; "and you get back five and sevenpence. Two and a penny profit."

      "Quite right. Anything else?"

      "The three books you sell for waste-paper will bring in something; perhaps they're big ones."

      "Perhaps they're little ones. We won't reckon them. Anything else?"

      "You bought twenty-eight books, sir; you only gave me twenty-seven to figure out. One short, sir."

      "That was stolen, Timothy."

      "Where from, sir?"

      "From the stall outside."

      "It couldn't have been, sir, if you had a sharp boy to attend to it for you."

      "Ah! The question is, where to find that particularly sharp boy?"

      "He's handy, sir, almost at your elbow." Now, although these words betokened a certain confidence and were spoken with a certain boldness, it is a fact that there was a tremor in Timothy's voice as he uttered them. The conversation between him and Mr. Loveday had been strangely in accordance with his earnest desire to be taken into Mr. Loveday's service. He had been upheld by this hope as he tramped from Essex after the schoolhouse had been burned down, and he had hurried back to London more swiftly than he would have done without it.

      Mr. Loveday ruminated; Timothy Chance waited anxiously.

      "I'm rather a peculiar fellow, Timothy," said Mr. Loveday, presently; "not at all unpleasant out of business, unless you quarrel with my social crotchets, and you're not old enough to do that yet, Timothy, but very strict in business matters, however trifling. That fowl of yours is beginning to crow, Timothy."

      "It's all right, sir," said Timothy, in a tone of wistful expectation, "please finish."

      "This strictness of mine in business matters may make me a hard master; I haven't tried my hand in that line much, as I've always attended to my shop myself, but I will not deny that I'm half inclined to engage a lad."

      "Make it a whole mind, sir, and engage me."

      Timothy's occasionally apt replies tickled and pleased Mr. Loveday; they betokened a kind of cleverness which he appreciated.

      "As we stand now," continued Mr. Loveday, "man and boy, not master and servant, we have a mutual respect for each other."

      "Thank you, sir."

      "It would be a pity to weaken this feeling."

      "It might be made stronger, sir."

      "There are numberless things to consider. If I say, 'Up at six every morning,' up at six it would have to be."

      "And should be, sir."

      "If I say, 'Every day's work completely done, every day's accounts satisfactorily made up, before the next day commences,' it would have to be. That fowl of yours is crowing louder, Timothy. No shirking of work by the excuse that it doesn't belong to the duties I engage a lad for. You understand all this?"

      "I understand it, sir."

      "On the other hand, satisfaction given, the cart would run along smoothly. There might be a little time in the evening for study and reading; there might be sundry pleasant interludes which one can't think of right off. Eh, Timothy?"

      "Yes, СКАЧАТЬ