To The West | Page 3

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.