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قراءة كتاب To The West
تنويه: تعرض هنا نبذة من اول ١٠ صفحات فقط من الكتاب الالكتروني، لقراءة الكتاب كاملا اضغط على الزر “اشتر الآن"
had stammered out all this and then stopped short, drawing my breath hard, for he had seized my hand, and was gripping it so hard that the coin I held was pressed into my fingers, as I gazed up into his face, while he slowly relaxed his hold and looked down into my palm.
“A sovereign!” he said slowly; and then fiercely, “Did your employer send you with that? And,” he cried hastily, “you heard?”
“Yes, sir. I was not listening.”
“How—how long has it taken you to save up this?”
“I don’t know, sir—months.”
“Ah!” Then as he held my hand tightly, he said in a half-mocking way, “Do you know when I came into the office I envied you, my boy, for I said, Here is one who has begun on the stool, and he’ll grow up to be a rich City man.”
“I don’t think I shall, sir,” I said, with a laugh.
“No,” he said, “you are of the wrong stuff, boy. Do you know that you are a weak young idiot to come and offer me, a perfect stranger, all that money—a man you have never seen before, and may never see again? How do you know I am not an impostor?”
“I don’t know how, sir,” I said, “but I can see you are not.”
He pressed my hand more firmly, and I saw his lips move for a few moments, but no sound came. Then softly—
“Thank you, my lad,” he said. “You have given me a lesson. I was saying that it was a hard and a bitter and cruel world, when you came up to show me that it is full of hope and sunshine and joy after all if we only seek it. I don’t know who you are, but your father, boy, must have been a gentleman at heart, and your mother as true a lady as ever breathed. Ah!”
He bent towards me as he still held my hand, for he must have read the change in my face, for his words sent a curious pang through me.
“Your mother is—?” He finished his question with a look.
I nodded, and set my teeth hard.
“Now, sir, please!” cried a rough voice, as a heavily-laden man came up, and my companion drew me into the road.
“Tell me your name.”
“Gordon, sir,” I said. “Mayne Gordon.”
“Come and see me—and my wife,” he said, taking a card from a shabby pocket-book. “Come on Sunday evening and have tea with us—Kentish Town. Will you come?”
“Yes,” I said, eagerly.
“That’s right. There, I can’t talk now. Shake hands. Good-bye.”
He wrung my hand hard, and turned hurriedly away, but I was by his side again.
“Stop,” I said. “You have not taken the—the—”
“No,” he said, clapping me on the shoulder, “I can’t do that. You’ve given me something worth a thousand such coins as that, boy as you are—renewed faith in my fellow-man—better still, patience and hope. Good-bye, my lad,” he said, brightly. “On Sunday, mind. Don’t lose that card.”
Before I could speak again he had hurried away, and just then a cold chill ran through me, and I set off at a run.
Suppose Mr Isaac Dempster should have come out into the office and found I had gone out!
Chapter Two.
Mr Isaac Dempster.
I was in the act of opening the swing-door stealthily, and was half through when I saw that Mr Dempster was acting precisely in the same way, stealing through the inner doorway, and making me a sign to stop.
I obeyed, shivering a little at what was to come, and wishing that I had the courage to utter a word of warning. For there was Esau with his head hanging down over the catalogue he was copying out, fast asleep, the sun playing amongst his fair curls, and a curious guttural noise coming from his nose.
It was that sound, I felt, which had brought Mr Dempster out with his lips drawn back in an ugly grin, and a malicious look in his eyes as he stepped forward on tiptoe, placed both his hands together on my fellow-clerk’s curly head, and pressed it down with a sudden heavy bang on the desk.
Something sounded very hollow. Perhaps it was the desk. Then there was a sudden bound, and Esau was standing on the floor, gazing wildly at our employer.
“You lazy idiotic lump of opium,” roared the latter. “That’s the way my work’s done, is it?”
As our employer uttered these words he made at Esau, following up and cuffing him first on one side of the head and then on the other, while the lad, who seemed utterly confused with sleep, and the stunning contact of his brow against the desk, backed away round the office, beginning then to put up his arms to defend himself.
“Here,” he cried, “don’t you hit me—don’t you hit me.”
“Hit you!—you stupid, thick-headed, drowsy oaf! I’ll knock some sense into you. Nice pair, upon my word! And you—you scoundrel,” he cried, turning on me, “where have you been?”
“Only—only just outside, sir,” I stammered, as I felt my cheeks flush.
“I’ll only just outside you,” he roared, catching me by the collar and shaking me. “This is the way my work is done, is it? You’re always late of a morning—”
“No, sir,” I cried, indignantly.
“Silence!—And always the first to rush off before your work’s done; and as soon as my back’s turned, you’re off to play with the boys in the street. Where have you been?”
I was silent, I felt that I could not tell him.
“Sulky, eh? Here, you,” he roared, turning upon Esau, “where has he been? How long has he been gone?”
“Don’t you hit me! Don’t you hit me!” cried the boy, sulkily; “I shan’t stand this.”
“I say, how long has he been gone?”
“I was only gone a few minutes, sir,” I said.
“Gone a few minutes, you scoundrel! How dare you be gone a few minutes, leaving my office open? You’re no more use than a boy out of the streets, and if I did my duty by you, I should thrash you till you could not stand. Back to your desk, you dog, and the next time I catch you at any of these tricks off you go, and no character.”
As I climbed back to my place at the desk, hot, flushed, and indignant, feeling more and more unable to explain the reason for my absence, and guilty at the same time—knowing as I did that I had no business to steal off—Mr Dempster turned once more upon Esau, who backed away from him round the office, sparring away with his arms to ward off the blows aimed at him, though I don’t think they were intended to strike, but only as a malicious kind of torture.
“Here, don’t you hit me! don’t you hit me!” Esau kept on saying, as if this was the only form of words he could call up in his excitement.
“I’ll half break your neck for you, you scoundrel! Is that catalogue done?”
“How can I get it done when you keep on chivvying me about the place?” cried Esau.
“How can you get it done if you go to sleep, you scoundrel, you mean. Now then, up on to that stool, and if it isn’t done you stop after hours till it is done. Here, what are you staring at? Get on with those letters.”
Mr Dempster had turned upon me furiously as I sat looking, and with a sigh I went on with my writing, while red-faced and wet-eyed, for he could not keep the tears back, Esau climbed slowly on to his stool, and gave a tremendous sniff.
“I shall tell mother as soon as I get home,” he cried.
“Tell your mother, you great calf! You had better not,” roared Mr Dempster. “She has troubles enough. It was only out of charity to her that I took you on. For you are useless—perfectly useless. I lose pounds through your blunders. There, that will do. Get on with your work.”
He went back into the inner office, and banged the door so heavily that all the auction bills which papered the walls of our office began to flap and swing about. Then for a few minutes there was only the scratching of our pens to be heard.
Then Esau gave a tremendous sniff, began wiping his eyes on the