“I hope you’ll excuse me for troubling you, uncle,” said Tom, colouring, but speaking in a tone which, though, tremulous, had a certain proud independence in it; “but I thought you were the best person to advise me what to do.”
“Ah!” said Mr Deane, reserving his pinch of snuff, and looking at Tom with new attention, “let us hear.”
“I want to get a situation, uncle, so that I may earn some money,” said Tom, who never fell into circumlocution.
“A situation?” said Mr Deane, and then took his pinch of snuff with elaborate justice to each nostril. Tom thought snuff-taking a most provoking habit.
“Why, let me see, how old are you?” said Mr Deane, as he threw himself backward again.
“Sixteen; I mean, I am going in seventeen,” said Tom, hoping his uncle noticed how much beard he had.
“Let me see; your father had some notion of making you an engineer, I think?”
“But I don’t think I could get any money at that for a long while, could I?”
“That’s true; but people don’t get much money at anything, my boy, when they’re only sixteen. You’ve had a good deal of schooling, however; I suppose you’re pretty well up in accounts, eh? You understand book keeping?”
“No,” said Tom, rather falteringly. “I was in Practice. But Mr Stelling says I write a good hand, uncle. That’s my writing,” added Tom, laying on the table a copy of the list he had made yesterday.