“I will not fail, sir,” said the boy.
The manner in which he expressed this determination seemed favourably to impress both gentlemen.
“I think, Mr. Walkinshaw,” said Mr. Octavius Crumpett, in a voice that was charged with emotion, “in the circumstances we shall be almost justified in introducing Mr. William Jordan, Junior, into the counting-house of Crumpett and Hawker.”
“I concur, sir,” said Mr. Walkinshaw, in a voice whose own emotion was attuned with supreme good breeding to that of his chief. “I concur.”
“I hope, Mr. Jordan,” said Mr. Octavius Crumpett, whose beautiful and vibrant tones had acquired a paternal inflection, “that you will contrive to maintain the excellent impression you have already created. For let me assure you, Mr. Jordan, it is easier for the average youth to become an Extension Lecturer than it is for him to occupy a stool in the counting-house of Crumpett and Hawker. Good-morning, Mr. Jordan.”
Mr. Octavius Crumpett concluded by thrusting out his right hand so suddenly and so unexpectedly, that the boy shrank away from him as though he were expecting to receive a blow.
“Shake it,” whispered Mr. Walkinshaw in his ear.
The boy grasped the firm white hand with a timidity that would not have been out of place had it been the fore-paw of a polar bear. However, his trepidation seemed further to prepossess him in the favour of both gentlemen. It was not always that those of his callow years had this nice but lively discrimination of the fine shades of the social cosmogony into which unsmiling Fate had projected them.
Mr. Walter Pater Walkinshaw conducted in person down the steep stairs the latest addition to the clerical staff of Messrs. Crumpett and Hawker. He led him into the counting-house, into the midst of that concourse of fellow-labourers in what was now to be his vineyard through which he had already passed.
As Mr. Walter Pater Walkinshaw did this he said, with an impressiveness of which the occasion seemed to be worthy, “Above all, Mr. Jordan, it behoves you to remember that the humblest occupant of a stool in the counting-house of Messrs. Crumpett and Hawker is ab ovo a candidate for election to the Athenæum Club under the rule honoris causâ.”