I sulkily took my seat; and Nunky left me for a few minutes, to the pleasing process of mental digestion. Presently, he stood by my side with a huge bundle of papers:—laid the papers on my desk.
"A fortnight," said he, "will probably elapse ere you can proceed to headquarters. I wish, in the mean time, you would just see what you can do, in arranging these convalescent accounts. We could not spare a hand for them, and they have got sadly into arrear. Do try what you can make of them."
I went to work;—worked hard for a fortnight. At the end of that time, with occasional directions from my uncle, the confused mass of accounts was reduced to something like order. Still nothing was said about my journey to headquarters. Fresh work was given me, which took another week. I began to get regularly savage—was rapidly turning misanthrope—sympathised with George Barnwell. Nunky requested my company in a private room.
"You came out," said he, "expecting to go up the country."
"Yes; and on that understanding I applied for the appointment, as I expressed in my letter from England. On that understanding too, unless I mistook the reply, my services were accepted."
"Well, G——," said he, "I put it to yourself. The fact is, those plaguy convalescent accounts have given us more trouble than all the business of the office besides. Till you came out, we never have had a clerk that could do them. You do them excellently. Of course, you are well aware the public service is the first thing. The long and the short of it is, you perform this duty so much to our satisfaction, your uncle J—— and I have come to the determination—we must keep you with us at Lisbon."
This, my dear madam, with the exception of being crossed in love—and to that, you know, we all are liable—was my first serious disappointment in life. Baulked in my schemes of military glory—for already, in imagination, I was a gentleman volunteer, had mounted a breach, and won a commission—I had now but one remedy; to resign my clerkship, and return forthwith to England. And this, under other circumstances, I should doubtless have done. But the case, as I then viewed it, stood thus. Here were my two dear uncles, with enormous responsibility—that of dispensing and accounting for the whole ready-money transactions of the Peninsular army; here was one miserable branch of accounts, which gave them more trouble than all the rest; and here was I, the only lad that could tackle it. Though that, by the bye, was just so much soft solder; for there were at least a dozen gentlemen, in our department, who could have made up and kept the convalescent books quite as well as myself, and probably far better.
Well; bad luck to the shilling. There was no remedy; so I settled to my work; devoting my leisure hours, as a safety-valve, to the furious study of Portuguese and Spanish. This blew off my wrath, and in after years proved of good service.
But I rather suspect, gentle reader, you're a bloody-minded fellow, and want to get away without further bother from Lisbon to the seat of war, among shot and shells, grape, canister and congreves. So, cutting it short, I shall just tell you how, at last, I out-generalled my dear uncle, and broke from bondage. After that, if you've no objection, we'll be off at once to join the army.
Please to bear in mind, then, that I was utterly unconscious of any wish that I should remain at Lisbon, on the part of my honoured parents, or either of them. Had I been aware, I would have acquiesced. My position, according to the view which I now took of it, was this. My parents had acceded to my scheme of joining the army: my uncles had brought me out upon that understanding, and upon no other: and yet, on my arrival, instead of forwarding me up the country, had, for no earthly reason that I could discover, detained me at Lisbon, to discharge a duty which, it was now perfectly clear, might quite as well have been committed to other hands. This, I say, being my actual view of the case, you will not think it strange, that I deemed it perfectly fair to employ all lawful means for my own enlargement and emancipation.