“Is that all you have left?” said he, when, after accomplishing my errand, I presented them to him. “My eye! you’ve made good use of your time, and no mistake.”
“I’ve not eaten a single one,” said I.
“It would have been better for your digestion if you had only eaten a single one, instead of swallowing half the lot. I know the ways of you boys. Well, what’s the time?”
“It was twenty-five past ten.”
“I didn’t ask you what it was—I want to know what it is.”
It then occurred to me for the first time that Mr Evans was a humourist. It seemed to me a feeble joke, but he evidently thought it a good one, as did also the other clerks to whom he communicated it.
The worst of it was that the more I tried to explain that, not having a watch of my own, I could not answer for the time by the market clock at any moment but that at which I saw it, the more they seemed to be amused. Some suggested I should go back with a bag and bring the time in it. Others, that I should put it on ten minutes, and then come back, so as to arrive at the exact moment it was when I left it. Others were of opinion that the best way would be for me to go and fetch the market clock with me.
Mr Evans, however, decided that my talents were not equal to the task of bringing the time in any shape or form, and that the best thing I could do was to sit down and lick up envelopes. Which I accordingly did, feeling rather small. I cut my tongue and spoiled my appetite over the operation, and was heartily glad when, after a couple of hours, Mr Evans said—
“Master Tommy, we’re going to lunch. You’ve had yours, so you can stop here, and keep shop till we return.”
“I have to go to Miss Bousfield’s at 2:30,” said I.