“Nor suggest to him that the appointment to the office here would only be temporary, and to see how he got on in it?”
“Certainly not.”
“Then, my dear sir, I’m not surprised that Charley rebels. You have left him to suppose that, once placed at the desk here, he is a prisoner for life. But see, there he is,” said Mr Grant, pointing as he spoke towards the subject of their conversation, who was passing the window at the moment; “let me call him, and I feel certain that he will listen to reason in a few minutes.”
“Humph!” ejaculated Mr Kennedy, “you may try.”
In another minute Charley had been summoned, and was seated, cap in hand, near the door.
“Charley, my boy,” began Mr Grant, standing with his back to the fire, his feet pretty wide apart, and his coat-tails under his arms—“Charley, my boy, your father has just been speaking of you. He is very anxious that you should enter the service of the Hudson’s Bay Company; and as you are a clever boy and a good penman, we think that you would be likely to get on if placed for a year or so in our office here. I need scarcely point out to you, my boy, that in such a position you would be sure to obtain more rapid promotion than if you were placed in one of the distant outposts, where you would have very little to do, and perhaps little to eat, and no one to converse with except one or two men. Of course, we would merely place you here on trial, to see how you suited us; and if you prove steady and diligent, there is no saying how fast you might get on. Why, you might even come to fill my place in course of time. Come now, Charley, what think you of it?”
Charley’s eyes had been cast on the ground while Mr Grant was speaking. He now raised them, looked at his father, then at his interrogator, and said—
“It is very kind of you both to be so anxious about my prospects. I thank you, indeed, very much; but I—a—”
“Don’t like the desk?” said his father, in an angry tone. “Is that it, eh?”
Charley made no reply, but cast down his eyes again and smiled (Charley had a sweet smile, a peculiarly sweet, candid smile), as if he meant to say that his father had hit the nail quite on the top of the head that time, and no mistake.