Will threw down the paper, and started to his feet: “199 Cloud Street?” He asked orange-women; he asked image-boys; he asked merchants; he asked clerks; he asked lawyers; he asked clients; he investigated cellars; he explored attics; he travelled through parks and through alleys; till, finally, he coaxed a graceless, bare-footed urchin to show him the way.
Mr. John Howard, editor and proprietor of the Weekly Chronicle, went upon the principle of paying nothing where nothing would pay, and paying as little as possible where he could get something for next to nothing. It was a fixed principle and confirmed practice with him, never to pay anything for contributions to the Chronicle. He considered that the great advantage that would accrue to an author from having his or her articles in his paper, would be ample remuneration. At the moment Will’s eye first fell upon him, he was reposing in a huge leathern arm-chair, in the corner of his sanctum. His proportions very much resembled an apoplectic bag of flour, surmounted by an apple. His head was ornamented with sparse spires of fiery red hair; on his cheeks, a pair of cream-coloured whiskers were feebly struggling into life; and sundry tufts of the same colour, under his chin, shadowed forth his editorial sympathy with the recent “Beard Movement.” Before him was a table of doubtful hue and architecture, laden with manuscripts, accepted, rejected, and under consideration; letters of all sizes, opened and unopened, prepaid and unpaid, saucy and silly, defiant and deprecatory. There was also an inkstand, crusted with dirt and cobwebs; a broken paper weight, pinning down some had money paid by distant subscribers, a camphine lamp with a broken pedestal, propped up by a directory on one side, and Walker’s Dictionary on the other; sundry stumps of cigars; a half eaten apple; a rind of an orange; a lady’s glove; and a box of bilious pills.
Will stepped before him, and made known his errand. Mr. John Howard looked at him with a portentious scowl, inspected him very much as he would a keg of doubtful mackerel, and then referred him to the foreman of the office, Mr. Jack Punch. Jack had been victimized, in the way of office boys, for an indefinite period with precocious city urchins, who smoked long nines, talked politics, discussed theatricals, and knew more of city haunts than the police themselves. Of course he lost no time in securing a boy to whose verdant feet the plough-soil was still clinging. Will’s business was to open the office at half-past six in the morning, sweep it out, make the fires, go to the post-office for letters and exchanges, wrap up papers for new subscribers, carry them to the post, and see that the mail was properly “got off.” To all these requirements, Will immediately subscribed.
On Will’s daily tramps to and from the office, he was obliged to pass Lithe and Co’s magnificent show window, where the choicest pictures and engravings were constantly exposed for sale. There he might be seen loitering, entranced and spell-bound, quite oblivious of the Chronicle, hour after hour, weaving bright visions—building air castles, with which his overseer, Mr. Jack Punch, had little sympathy. Yes; Will had at length found out what he was made for. He knew now why he had lain under the trees, of a bright summer day, watching the fleecy clouds go sailing by, in such a dreamy rapture; why the whispering leaves, and waving fields of grain, and drooping branches of graceful trees, and the mirror-like beauty of the placid lake, reflecting a mimic heaven; why the undulating hills, and mist-wreathed valleys, with their wealth of leaf, and bud and blossom, filled his eyes with tears and his soul with untold joy, and why, when slumber sealed each weary lid under the cottage eaves, he stood alone, hushing his very breath, awe-struck, beneath the holy stars.
Poor Will, his occupation became so distasteful! Poor Will, winged for a “bird of paradise,” and forced to be a mole, burrowing under the earth, when he would fain try his new-found pinions! To Jack’s intense disgust, he soon detected Will drawing rude sketches on bits of paper, stray wrappers, and backs of letters; even the walls were “done in crayons,” by the same mischievous fingers. His vision was so filled “with the curved line of beauty,” that he was constantly committing the most egregious blunders. He misplaced the bundles of newspapers which he carried to the post-office; placing the “north” packages on the “south” table, the east on the north, the south on the east, &c.; mixing them up generally and indescribably and inextricably, so that the subscribers to the “Weekly Chronicle” did not receive their papers with that precision and regularity which is acknowledged to be desirable, particularly in small country places, where the blacksmith’s shop, the engine house, and “the newspaper” form a trio not to be despised by the simple-hearted primitive farmers.
Jack, whose private opinion it was that he should have been christened Job, being obliged to shoulder all the short-comings of his assistants, and being worked up to a pitch of frenzy by letters from incensed subscribers, which Mr. Howard constantly thrust in his face, very unceremoniously ejected Will from the premises, one morning, by a vigorous application of the toe of his boot.
The world was again a closed oyster to Will. How to open it? that was the question. Our hero thought the best place to consider the matter was at “Lithe & Co’s.” shop window. Just as he reached it, a gentleman passed out of the shop, followed by a lad bearing a small framed landscape. Perhaps the gentleman was an artist! Perhaps he could employ him in some way! Will resolved to follow him.
Up one street and down another, round corners and through squares—the gentleman’s long legs seemed to be shod with the famed seven-leagued boots. At length he stopped before the door of an unpretending looking building, and handing the lad who accompanied him a bit of money, he took from him the picture, and was just springing up the steps, when he lost his balance, and the picture was jerked violently from his hand, but only to be caught by the watchful Will, who restored it to its owner uninjured.
“Thank you, my boy,” said the gentleman, “you have done me a greater service than you think for;” at the same time offering him some money.
“No, I thank you,” said Will proudly. “I do not wish to be paid for it.”