I admitted that handwriting was not my strong point.
“Nor spelling either,” he added, and with truth. “Who do you think will engage you if I don't?”
“Nobody,” he continued, without waiting for me to reply. “A month hence you will still be looking for a berth, and a month after that. Now, I'm going to do you a good turn; save you from destitution; give you a start in life.”
I expressed my gratitude.
He waived it aside. “That is my notion of philanthropy: help those that nobody else will help. That young fellow in the other room—he isn't a bad worker, he's smart, but he's impertinent.”
I murmured that I had gathered so much.
“Doesn't mean to be, can't help it. Noticed his trick of looking at you with his glass eye, keeping the other turned away from you?”
I replied that I had.
“Always does it. Used to irritate his last employer to madness. Said to him one day: 'Do turn that signal lamp of yours off, Minikin, and look at me with your real eye.' What do you think he answered? That it was the only one he'd got, and that he didn't want to expose it to shocks. Wouldn't have mattered so much if it hadn't been one of the ugliest men in London.”
I murmured my indignation.