To The West | Page 3

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;