“Well, you’ve got to learn to be of use to me as soon as you can. You can write, I suppose?”
“Yes, sir—not very well,” I faltered.
“Of course you can’t. No boy brought up as you have been, without going to a school, could be expected to write a decent hand. But look here, you’ll have to try and write well; so take that paper to the desk and copy it out in a neat round hand.”
I took the paper with trembling hands, climbed to the desk, spread the sheet of foolscap ready upon a big piece of blotting-paper, and took up one of the pens before me.
Those were the days before steel nibs had become common, and the pen I took was a quill split up and spoiled.
I took another and another, but they were all the same; and then, glancing at the inkstand, I found that it was dry.
I hardly dared to do it, but he glanced up at me to see if I had begun, and I ventured to say that there was neither pen nor ink.
“Of course not, blockhead. Get down and fetch some off the chimney-piece.”
I gladly obeyed; and then, resuming my seat, with the words on the paper dancing before my eyes, made my first essay as Mr Blakeford’s clerk.
The writing before me was not very distinct, but I managed to decipher it pretty well, getting a little puzzled as to the meaning of “ads.” and “exors.,” with various other legal contractions, but after the first line or two going steadily on, for, bad as my education had been, I was able to write a boy’s neat round hand, consequent upon often copying out lists for my father, or names to label the collections we made.