The name startled Reginald into industry, and he set the advertisement up very clearly and carefully, and re-read it once or twice in the type before he could make up his mind to go on to the next.
The thought of it haunted him all day. Should he tell Horace, or Gedge, or his mother of it? Should he go and give Durfy notice then and there? No, he would reply to it before he told any one; and then, if the answer was unsatisfactory—which he could not think possible—then no one would be the wiser or the worse for it.
The day flew on leaden wings. Gedge put his friend’s silence down to anxiety as to the consequences of yesterday’s adventure and did and said what he could to express his sympathy. Mr Durfy alone, sitting at his table, and directing sharp glances every now and then in his direction, could guess the real meaning of his pre-occupation, and chuckled to himself as he saw it.
Reginald spent threepence on his way home that evening—one in procuring a copy of the Rocket, and two on a couple of postage-stamps. Armed with these he walked rapidly home with Horace, giving him in an absent sort of way a chronicle of the day’s doings, but breathing not a word to him or his mother subsequently about the advertisement.
After supper he excused himself from joining in the usual walk by saying he had a letter to write, and for the first time in his life felt relieved to see his mother and brother go and leave him behind them.
Then he pulled out the newspaper and eagerly read the advertisement once more in print. There it was, not a bit changed! Lots of fellows had seen it by this time, and some of them very likely were at this moment answering it. They shouldn’t get the start of him, though!
He sat down and wrote—
“Sir,—Having seen your advertisement in the Rocket, I beg to apply for particulars. I am respectable and fairly intelligent, and am at present employed as compositor in the Rocket newspaper-office. I shall be glad to increase my income. I am 18 years of age, and beg to enclose stamp for a reply to this address.
“Yours truly,—
“Reginald Cruden.”