“But it’s not the literary work, unluckily,” said Reginald.
“Ah! you mean clerk’s work. You aren’t as quick at figures, perhaps, as you might be?”
“That’s not exactly it,” said Horace. “The fact is, mother, we’re neither in the literary not the clerical department. I’m a ‘printer’s devil’!”
“Oh, Horace! what do you mean?” said the horrified mother.
“Oh, I’m most innocently employed. I run messages; I fetch and carry for a gentleman called Durfy. He gives me some parliamentary news to carry to one place, and some police news to carry to another place—and, by-the-way, they read very much alike—and when I’m not running backwards or forwards I have to sit on a stool and watch him, and be ready to jump up and wag my tail the moment he whistles. It’s a fact, mother! Think of getting eighteen shillings a week for that! It’s a fraud!”
Mrs Cruden could hardly tell whether to laugh or cry.
“My poor boy!” she murmured; then, turning to Reginald, she said, “And what do you do, Reg?”
“Oh, I sweep rooms,” said Reg, solemnly; “but they’ve got such a shocking bad broom there that I can’t make it act. If you could give me a new broom-head, mother, and put me up to a dodge or two about working out corners, I might rise in my profession!”
There was a tell-tale quaver in the speaker’s voice which made this jaunty speech a very sad one to the mother’s ears. It was all she could do to conceal her misery, and when Horace came to the rescue with a racy account of the day’s proceedings, told in his liveliest manner, she was glad to turn her head and hide from her boys the trouble in her face.
However, she soon recovered herself, and by the time Horace’s story was done she was ready to join her smiles with those which the history had drawn even from Reginald’s serious countenance.