Chapter Eleven.
How my Friend Smith and I entered on New Duties in New Company.
The two days which followed my eventful expedition to London were among the most anxious I ever spent. Young and unsophisticated as I was, I knew quite enough of my own affairs to feel that a crisis in my life had been reached, and that a great deal, nay, everything, depended on how my application for Merrett, Barnacle, and Company’s situation turned out. If I succeeded there, I should have made a start in life—modest enough, truly, but a start all the same—and who was to say whether from the bottom of the ladder I might not some day and somehow get to the top? But if I missed, I knew full well my uncle would take my affairs into his own hands, and probably put me to work which would be distasteful, and in which I should be miserable. So you see, reader, I had a good deal staked on my little venture.
The miserable thing was that I might never hear at all from the firm, but go on hoping against hope, day after day, in a suspense which would be worse than knowing straight off that I had failed. However, I kept up appearances before my uncle, for I didn’t want him to think it was no use waiting a little before he took me in hand himself. I spent several hours a day working up my arithmetic, making out imaginary invoices against every imaginable person, and generally preparing myself for office work. And the rest of my time I spent in cogitation and speculation as to my future destiny, and the merits and demerits of those enviable mortals, Doubleday, Wallop, and Crow, of the Export Department of Messrs Merrett, Barnacle, and Company.
On Tuesday morning two letters came for me with the London postmark, one in Jack Smith’s well-remembered handwriting, the other with the awful initials, “M., B., and Company,” on the seal.
I opened Smith’s letter first. It was very short.
“Dear Fred,—I hear to-day I have got the situation. I’m afraid that means you have missed it. I’m awfully sorry, old boy, that’s all I can say. I hope in any case you will come to London. I’ll write again. Ever yours,—Jack.”
I flung down the letter in a whirl of mingled feelings. That Jack Smith had got the situation I could not help being glad. But that I had lost it was simply crushing. Although I had kept reminding myself all along in words that the chances were very remote, I yet discovered how I had at heart been reckoning on my success almost to a certainty. And now I was utterly floored.
All this was the first hurried impression caused on my mind by my friend Smith’s letter; and for a minute I quite forgot, in my mortification, that I had in my hand another letter—a letter from Merrett, Barnacle, and Company themselves. Then suddenly remembering it, I called to mind also the vague rumour of two clerks being wanted in the office, and with new hope and wild anxiety I tore open the envelope.
Could I believe my eyes?
“Frederick Batchelor is informed that his application for junior clerkship is successful. He will be required to begin work on Monday next at 9 a.m.”
For the space of two minutes, reader, I knew not if I was standing on my head or my feet. I will pass over the excited day or two which followed. My uncle, of course, did what he could to check my glee. He said Merrett, Barnacle, and Company must be easily pleased, but they would soon find out their mistake, and that I might as well make up my mind to be dismissed after the first fortnight, and so on. I didn’t take it much to heart; and after the first gush did not trouble my relative much with my prospects.
I was, however, a little curious to know what proposal he would make about my board and lodging in the great metropolis, which, after all, was a matter of some little consequence to me.
He did not see fit to relieve my anxiety on this point until the very eve of my departure from Brownstroke, when he said, abruptly, “You will be gone before I’m down to-morrow, Frederick. Don’t forget the train starts at two minutes before six. I have arranged for you to lodge with Mrs Nash, whose address is on this card. There will be time to take your trunk round there before you go to your work. For the present I shall pay for your lodging.”
“Shall I get my meals there?” I ventured to ask.
“Eh! You must arrange about that sort of thing yourself; and take my advice, and don’t be extravagant.”
As my salary was to be eight shillings a week, there wasn’t much chance of my eating my head off, in addition to providing myself decently with the ordinary necessaries of life.
“I say I shall pay your lodging for the present, but before long I expect you to support yourself entirely. I cannot afford it, Frederick.”
It had never occurred to me before that I cost anything to keep, but the fact was slowly beginning to dawn on me, and the prospect of having shortly to support myself cast rather a damper over the pictures I had drawn to myself of my pleasant life in London.
“Good-bye,” said my uncle. “Here is half-a-sovereign for you, which remember is on no account to be spent. Keep it by you, and don’t part with it. Good-night.”
And so my uncle and I parted.
It was with rather subdued feelings that next morning I set out betimes for the station, lugging my small trunk along with me. That trunk and the half-sovereign I was not to spend comprised, along with the money which was to pay my fare, and the clothes I wore, the sum of my worldly goods. The future lay all unknown before me. My work at Hawk Street, my residence at Mrs Nash’s, my eight shillings a week, I had yet to find out what they all meant; at present all was blank—all, that is, except one spot, and that was the spot occupied by my friend Smith. I could reckon on him, I knew, whatever else failed me.
I caught my train without much difficulty, as I was at the station at least half an hour before it was due, and had a third-class carriage to myself all the way to London. There were not many people travelling at that early hour, and when I reached the great metropolis at seven o’clock the station and streets looked almost as deserted as on the former occasion they had been crowded.
Mrs Nash’s residence, so the card said, was in Beadle Square, wherever that might be. I was, however, spared the anxiety of hunting the place up, for my uncle had authorised me to spend a shilling in a cab for the occasion; and thus conveyed, after twistings and turnings which positively made my head ache, I arrived in state at my future lodging.
The “square” was, like many other City squares, a collection of tumbledown dingy houses built round an open space which might once have contained nothing but green grass and trees, but was now utterly destitute of either. There was indeed an enclosure within rusty and broken iron palings, but it contained nothing but mud, a few old beer-cans, and a lot of waste-paper, and one dead cat and one or two half-starved living ones. A miserable look-out, truly, as I stood on Mrs Nash’s doorstep with my trunk waiting to be let in.
A slatternly female, whom I supposed to be the servant, admitted me.
“Is Mrs Nash in?” said I.
“Yes, that’s me,” said the lady. “I suppose you’re young Batchelor.”
She spoke gruffly and like a person who was not very fond of boys.
“Yes,” said I.
“All right,” said she; “come in and bring your trunk.”
I obeyed. The place looked very dark and grimy, far worse than ever Stonebridge House had been. I followed her, struggling with my trunk, up the rickety staircase of a house which a hundred years ago might have been a stylish town residence, but which now was one of the forlornest ghosts of a house you ever saw.
I found myself at last in a big room containing several beds.
“Here’s where you’ll sleep,” said the female.
“Are there other boys here, then?” I asked, who had expected a solitary lodging.
“Yes, lots of ’em; and a bad lot too.”
“Are they Merrett, Barnacle, and Company’s boys?” I inquired.
“Who?” inquired Mrs Nash, rather bewildered.
I saw my mistake in time. Of course this was a regular lodging-house for office-boys generally.
“Leave your box there,” said Mrs Nash, “and come along.”
Leading to the floor below the dormitory, I was shown a room with a long table down the middle, with a lot of dirty pictures stuck on the wall, and one or two dirty books piled up in the corner.
“This is the parlour,” said she. “Are you going to board, young man?”
I looked at her inquiringly.
“Are you going to get your grub here or out of doors?” she said.
“Do the other boys get it here?” I asked.
“Some do, some don’t. What I say is, Are you going to or not?”
“What does it cost?” I said.
“Threepence breakfast and threepence supper,” said Mrs Nash.
I longed to ask her what was included in the bill of fare for these meals, but was too bashful.
“I think,” said I, “I had better have them, then.”
“All right,” said she, shortly. “Can’t have breakfast to-day; too late! Supper’s at nine, and lock-up at ten, there. Now you’d better cut, or you’ll be late at work.”
Yes, indeed! It would be no joke to be late my first morning.
“Please,” said I, “can you tell me the way to Hawk Street?”
“Where’s that?” said Mrs Nash. “I don’t know. Follow the tram lines when you get out of the square, they’ll take you to the City, and then—”
At this moment a youth appeared in the passage about my age with a hat on one side of his head, a cane in his hand, and a pipe, the bowl as big as an egg-cup, in his mouth.
“I say, look here, Mrs Nash,” said he, in a sleepy sort of voice; “why wasn’t I called this morning?”
“So you was,” said Mrs Nash.
“No, I wasn’t,” drawled the youth.
“That’s what you say,” observed the landlady. “I say you was; I called you myself.”
“Then you ought to have knocked louder. How do you suppose a fellow who was out at a party overnight is to hear you unless you knock hard? I shall be late at the office, all through you.”
Mrs Nash said “Shut up!” and the youth said “Shan’t shut up!” and Mrs Nash inquired why, if he was late, he did not go off instead of dawdling about there, like a gentleman?
This taunt seemed to incense the youth, who put his nose in the air and walked out without another word.
“There,” said Mrs Nash, pointing to his retreating form, “you’d best follow him; he’s going to the City, the beauty.”
I took the hint, and keeping “the beauty” at a respectful distance, followed in his lordly wake for about twenty minutes, until the rapidly-crowding streets told me I was in the City. Then, uncertain how to direct my steps, I quickened my pace and overtook him.
“Please can you tell me the way to Hawk Street?”
He took two or three good puffs out of his big pipe, and blew the smoke gracefully out of the corners of his mouth, and, by way of variety, out of his nose, and then said, in a condescending voice, “Yes, my man; first to the left and second to the right.”
He certainly was a very self-assured young man, and struck me as quite grand in his manners. I had positively to screw up my courage to ask him, “I say, you are one of Mrs Nash’s lodgers, aren’t you?”
He stared at me, not quite sure what to make of me.
“Only,” said I, by way of explanation, “I saw you there just now, and Mrs Nash said I’d better follow you.”
“Mrs Nash is a jolly sight too familiar. So are you.”
With which the stately youth marched on, his nose higher in the air than ever.
I was not greatly reassured by this first introduction, but for the time being I was too intent on reaching Merrett, Barnacle, and Company’s in good time to think of much beside. Fortunately my fellow-lodger’s direction was correct, and in a few minutes I found myself standing on familiar ground in Hawk Street.
When I entered the office the youth who rejoiced in the name of Crow was the only representative of the firm present. He was engaged in the intellectual task of filling up the ink-pots out of a big stone jar, and doing it very badly too, as the small puddles of ink on nearly every desk testified. He knew me at once, and greeted me with great alacrity.
“Hullo! young ’un, here you are. Look sharp and fill up the rest of these, do you hear? and mind you don’t make any spills!”
I proceeded to obey, while Mr Crow, quite a grandee now that there was some one in the office junior to himself, stood, with his legs apart, before the fireplace and read the Times, giving an occasional glance at my proceedings.
“Hold hard!” he cried, presently, in an excited manner, when, having filled all the ink-pots along one of the desks, I was proceeding to attack on the other side of the screen; “hold hard! you don’t want to fill up for the Imports, I say. They can do that themselves!”
Of course I agreed with him in this, and was just about restoring the jar to Mr Crow’s custody, when Jack Smith entered the office.
“Hullo! Jack,” I cried, feeling quite an old hand; “here you are. Isn’t it fine?”
“Rather,” said Jack, solemnly, returning my grasp. “I am glad.”
“So am I. I was in such a fright when—”
“Now then, you young ’un there,” said Crow, looking up from his paper, “don’t go dawdling, I say. Just stick fresh nibs in all the Export pens, and look sharp about it, too.”
“I’ll help you, Fred,” said Jack Smith, as I proceeded to obey.
“No, you won’t!” said Crow; “we don’t want you messing about in our department. You stick to your Imports.”
It was evident Exports and Imports at Messrs Merrett, Barnacle, and Company’s were not on absolutely brotherly terms. Anyhow I had to stick in the nibs unassisted.
Presently the other clerks began to drop in, among them Mr Doubleday, who was very witty on the subject of my appointment, and told Wallop he understood I was to be admitted into partnership next week, and would then sign all the cheques.
“All right!” said Wallop; “I’ll put off asking for a rise till next week.”
I was presumptuous enough to laugh at this, which greatly offended both the magnates. Doubleday ordered me to my desk instantly.
“Get on with your work, do you hear? and don’t stand grinning there!”
“What had I better do?” I inquired, mildly.
“Do?” said Mr Doubleday, proceeding to take up his pen and settle himself to work; “I’ll let you know what to— Look here. Crow,” he broke off, in a rage, pointing to one of the ink puddles which that hero had made, “here’s the same beastly mess again! Every Monday it’s the same—ink all over the place! Why on earth don’t you keep your messes to yourself?”
“That young ’un filled up to-day,” said Crow, coolly pointing to me.
I was so astounded by this false charge that I could hardly speak. At last I retorted, “I didn’t; you know I didn’t!”
“Yes, you did!” said Crow.
“I didn’t fill up that pot; it was done before I got here.”
“Don’t tell lies!” said Crow.
“I’m not telling lies!” cried I.
“Yes, you are!” said Crow. “I’m ashamed of you!”
“Oh, it was you, was it?” demanded Mr Doubleday, turning to me; “then just come and wipe it up. Look sharp!”
I was disposed to resist this piece of injustice to the utmost, but somehow the morning of my arrival it would hardly look well to figure in a row.
“I didn’t do it,” said I, in an agitated voice, “but I’ll wipe it up.”
“Look sharp about it, then!” said Doubleday, grinning at Wallop.
It is one thing to offer to wipe up an ink puddle, and quite another to do it.
“Now then!” said Doubleday, as I stood doubtfully in front of the scene of operation.
“I don’t know,” I faltered,—“I, that is—I haven’t got anything I can do it with.”
“What! not got a handkerchief!” exclaimed the head clerk, in apparent consternation.
“Yes; but I can’t do it with that. Wouldn’t some blotting—”
“Blotting-paper!—the firm’s blotting-paper to wipe up his messes! What do you think of that, all of you? Come, out with your handkerchief!”
Things looked threatening. I saw it was no use resisting. Even the Imports were standing on their stools and looking over the screen. So I took out my handkerchief and, with a groan, plunged it into the spilt ink.
Doubleday and the clerks evidently appreciated this act of devotion, and encouraged me with considerable laughter. My handkerchief and my hand were soon both the colour of the fluid they were wiping up, and my frame of mind was nearly as black.
“Now then,” said Doubleday, “aren’t you nearly done? See if there’s any gone down the crack there. Is there?”
I stooped down to inspect the crack in question, and as I did so Mr Doubleday adroitly slipped his pen under my soaking handkerchief, and, by a sudden jerk, lifted it right into my face.
At the same moment the door opened and Mr Barnacle entered! He looked round for a moment sharply, and then, passing on to the inner-room, said, “Doubleday, bring the two new office-boys into my room.”
If I had heard just the sentence of death pronounced on me I could hardly have been more horrified. My face and hand were like the face and hand of a negro, my collar and shirt were spotted and smeared all over with ink, and even my light hair was decorated with black patches. And in this guise I was to make my first appearance before my masters! Jack Smith’s expression of amazement and horror as he caught sight of me only intensified my own distress, and Doubleday’s stern “Now you’re in for it!” sounded hopelessly prophetic.
I could do nothing. To wipe my face with my clean hand, with the tail of my jacket, with my shirt-sleeve, could do no good. No; I was in for it and must meet my doom!
But I determined to make one expiring effort to escape it.
“Please, sir,” I cried, as we came to the door and before we entered, “I’m very sorry, but my face is all over ink. May I wash it before I come in?”
I was vaguely conscious of the titters of the clerks behind me, of the angry grip of Doubleday on one side of me, and of Smith’s solemn and horrified face on the other, and the next moment I was standing with my friend in front of Mr Barnacle’s awful desk.
He regarded me sternly for a moment or two, during which I suffered indescribable anguish of mind.
“What is the meaning of this?” said he. “I don’t understand it.”
“Oh, please, sir,” cried I, almost beseechingly, “I’m so sorry. I was wiping up some ink, and got some on my face. I couldn’t help.”
Mr Barnacle looked angry and impatient.
“This is no place for nonsense,” said he.
“Really I couldn’t help,” I pleaded.
There must have been some traces of earnestness visible, I fancy, on my inky face, for I saw Mr Barnacle look at me curiously as I spoke, while there was the faintest perceptible twitch at the corners of his lips.
“Go and wash at once,” he said, sternly.
I fled from his presence as if I had been a leper, and amid the merriment of my fellow-clerks sought the sink at the other end of the office and washed there as I had never washed before.
After much exertion, my countenance resumed something like its natural complexion, and the white skin faintly dawned once more on my fingers. My collar and shirt-front were beyond cleaning, but at the end of my ablutions I was, at any rate, rather more presentable than I had been.
Then I returned refreshed in body and mind to Mr Barnacle, whom I found explaining to Smith his duties in the Import Department. He briefly recapitulated the lecture for my benefit, and then dismissed us both under the charge of Mr Doubleday to our duties, and by the time one o’clock was reached that day, and I was informed I might go out for twenty minutes for my dinner, I was quite settled down as junior clerk in the Export Department of Merrett, Barnacle, and Company.