“I am much obliged to you,” I replied.
“Yonder is Mr. Spratling,” said my uncle, smiling at the youth who had turned his head on hearing his name pronounced. I nodded, and Mr. Spratling stared. My uncle then went round the counter, calling to me to follow, and going up to a desk behind the ground-glass front, said, “This will be your place, Charlie,” and watched my face; but I said nothing, though I could have commented in very forcible terms upon the immense inconvenience it would be to me—a lounger born—of having to sit on a high stool all day and write down dry bucolic names and rows of figures in a huge book called a ledger. My uncle then conducted me into his private office at the back, and leaning against the table, asked me, with a rather humorous twinkle in his eye, “How my look-out struck me?”
“I’ll tell you what,” I answered, seating myself, for it was always my opinion that you can’t make a greater mistake than to stand when you can sit; “I’ll tell you what, uncle; you are such a thoroughly good fellow, with so nice a sense of what is due to a gentleman, that I believe, after a little, I shall be able to endure this life. But in any other office than yours, with any other man but you over me, I could no more submit to have a counter placed between me and society, than I could submit to cleaning boots.”
He laughed heartily, and clapping me on the shoulder, exclaimed,
“I don’t mean you to be a clerk; all that I want you to do is to learn the business. I have plans for you, which both you and your father will like, I believe. But you must learn the business. I don’t mean you to do any dry or mean work, such as collecting bills. Look over young Spratling’s shoulder now and then, and observe what he is about. Pump Mr. Curling—he is good-natured and a smart hand—and get all the information you can out of him.”
“Oh, I will, with pleasure.”
“You needn’t fear any ill-feeling. They know you are my nephew, and I have told them that your father has sent you to me to learn business habits, and to qualify you for becoming—well, I shall have more to say to you about the future before long. I have a good scheme in my head.”
“You are all kindness,” I answered. “Every moment I am with you makes me think of Longueville with less regret.”
“All right,” he exclaimed, looking immensely gratified and amiable. “And now, as I told you last night, I don’t want you to formally join us until Monday. You are under an engagement to my wife—who, I can assure you, has fallen in love with you!—to dine with us every day—that is, if you like; and she takes you under her protection until Monday morning, when she will consign you to me. She has ordered the carriage at eleven, and means, I believe, to take you a drive round the town, and show you what there is to be seen. The phaeton will convey you to Grove End.”
Here Mr. Spratling came in, and said Mr. Clover wanted an audience. I took my hat, but before I went out, my uncle called me back to whisper, “You’ll find a box of cigars in the library,” and dismissed me with a cheerful push. Mr. Curling bowed as I passed out, and I returned his salute politely. I felt more at my ease now that my uncle had told me that these young men were to regard me as a gentleman who had condescended to join the bank merely for the purpose of acquiring business habits. I cannot say that I thought Mr. Curling good-looking. His eyes indeed were not bad; but he didn’t look a manly sort of fellow. He was narrow and thin-breasted, and had curly black hair, which I detest. His teeth were good, and his smile so-so, but his dress was outré, ill-fitting, and he wore a ring on the first finger of his right hand—the hand he wrote with, the finger he pointed with—which affected me more disagreeably than had he said “You was,” and dropped his h’s and g’s. It was ridiculous to suppose that golden-haired Conny could see anything in such a man as that. As to Spratling, he looked a harmless little fellow; his head and hands were immense, and his shoulders broad enough for a man of my father’s height; yet he might have walked under my arm.