"Thank you, uncle," Bob said, suppressing his impulse to give a shout of satisfaction, and looking as grave as possible. "I think that would be a very nice arrangement."
"Mr. Medlin is a very trustworthy person," Mr. Bale went on. "He has been with me for upwards of twenty years, and I have the greatest confidence in him.
"You had better sit down here, and take a book. At five o'clock come down into the counting house. Mr. Medlin will leave at that hour."
Bob had hitherto avoided the counting house. He had occasionally, on previous visits, slipped down to his friend the foreman; and had wandered through the great cellars, and watched the men at work bottling, and gazed in surprise at the long tiers of casks stacked up to the roof of the cellar, and the countless bottles stowed away in the bins. Once or twice he had gone down into the counting house, with his uncle; and waited there a few minutes, until the foreman was disengaged. He had noticed Mr. Medlin at work at his high desk, in one corner--keeping, as it seemed to him, his eye upon two young clerks, who sat on high stools at opposite sides of the desk, on the other side of the office.
Mr. Medlin had a little rail round the top of his desk, and curtains on rods that could be drawn round it. He was a man of six or seven and thirty; with a long face, smooth shaven. He always seemed absorbed in his work and, when spoken to by Mr. Bale, answered in the fewest possible words, in an even, mechanical voice. It had seemed to Bob that he had been entirely oblivious to his presence; and it did not appear to him now, as he sat with a book before him, waiting for the clock on the mantel to strike five, that existence at Mr. Medlin's promised to be a lively one. Still, as there were boys and girls, it must be more amusing than it would be at his uncle's and, at any rate, the clerk would not be so formidable a personage to deal with as Mr. Bale.
At one minute to five he went down, so as to open the counting house door as the clock struck. As he went in through the outer door, his uncle came out from the inner office.
"Ah! There you are, Robert.
"Mr. Medlin, this is my nephew who, as we have arranged, will take up his residence with you. I am afraid you will find him somewhat headstrong and troublesome. I have already informed you why it has been necessary to remove him from school. However, I trust that there will be no repetition of such follies; and that he will see the necessity of abandoning schoolboy pranks, and settling down to business."
"Yes, sir," Mr. Medlin replied, seeing that his employer expected an answer.
Bob had noticed that, although the clerk's eyes were directed upon him, there appeared to be no expression of interest or curiosity in them; but that they might as well have been fixed upon a blank wall.