“’Tain’t nonsense,” he said one morning, after Mr Dempster had been a little more disagreeable than usual about some copying not being finished, and then gone out, leaving me thinking what I could do to give him a little more satisfaction, so as to induce him to raise the very paltry salary he paid me. “’Tain’t nonsense. Mother says that if I stop I shall some day rise and get to be Lord Mayor, but I don’t think Demp would like it, so when you’re ready we’ll go.—Ready?”
“No.”
“You are a fellow!” said Esau, taking up his pen again. “I say, though, I wish we could get places somewhere else.”
“Why not try?”
“Because it would only be to do writing again, and it’s what makes me so sleepy. I’m getting worse—keep making figures and writing out catalogues till my head gets full of ’em.”
“It is tiring,” I said, with a sigh. “But do go on; he’ll be so cross if that list isn’t finished.”
“Can’t help it. I’m ever so much more sleepy this morning, and the words get running one atop of another. Look here,” he cried, holding up a sheet of ruled paper. “This ought to have been ‘chest of drawers,’ and it’s run into one word, ‘chawers’; and up higher there’s another blunder, ‘loo-table,’—it’s gone wrong too—do you see?—‘lable.’ My head’s all a buzz.”
“Tear it up quickly and write it again.”
“Shan’t; I shall correct it. No, I know. I shall cut the paper up, and stick it on another sheet, and write these lines in again. Pass the gum. Oh!”
“What’s the matter?”