“Bring me your ledger,” said the old man. “Look here now,” said he to me, as he turned over the beautifully clean and neatly kept volume: “this is the work of one who earns six hundred florins a year. You began with four, Harasch?”
“Three hundred, Herr Ignaz,” said the lad, bowing.
“Can you live and wear such clothes as these,” said the old man, touching my tweed coat, “for three hundred florins a year,—paper florins, mind, which in your money would make about twenty-five pounds?”
“I will do my best with it,” said I, determined he should not deter me by mere words.
“Take him with you, Harasch; let him copy into the waste-book. We shall see in a few days what he's fit for.”
At a sign from the youth I followed him out, and soon found myself in the outer room, where a considerable number of the younger clerks were waiting to acknowledge me.
Nothing could well be less like the manners and habits I was used to than the coarse familiarity and easy impertinence of these young fellows. They questioned me about my birth, my education, my means, what circumstance had driven me to my present step, and why none of my friends had done anything to save me from it Not content with a number of very searching inquiries, they began to assure me that Herr Ignaz would not put up with my incapacity for a week. “He 'll send you into the yard,” cried one; and the sentence was chorused at once. “Ja! ja! he'll be sent into the yard.” And though I was dying to know what that might mean, my pride restrained my curiosity, and I would not condescend to ask.
“Won't he be fine in the yard!” I heard one whisper to another, and they both began laughing at the conceit; and I now sat down on a bench and lost myself in thought.
“Come; we are going to dinner, Englander,” said Harasch to me at last; and I arose and followed him.