XII
Thenext day the boy returned to the study of the practical sciences under his father’s guidance. The brief hour of self-reliance, of actual motive power, seemed to pass almost as suddenly as it had come. Yet although he had been ground down into the dust again, the sap and fibre had appeared to increase in his frame. He went alone no more intothe streets of the great city in search of pieces of silver, but the need of obtaining them by his own address was never absent from his thoughts.
One sultry evening of midsummer, when he returned to the little room after a dusty and stifling pilgrimage about the streets in his father’s company in the pursuit of knowledge, he said with an air of mournful conviction, “Each day makes it more clear to me, my father, that if once our store of silver pieces should fail us, we shall lose this little room of ours. Every time I walk abroad in the great city I see numbers and numbers of these poor street-persons whose sad faces tell me that they have lost their little rooms.”
His father, although he would have sought to deny this assertion, was yet not able to do so.
Indoors and out of doors the boy pursued his studies with a most vigilant constancy. He read the newspaper daily, and committed portions of it to memory. And he accompanied his father all about the streets of the great city. He accompanied him into the most inaccessible places, using his ears and eyes faithfully. And at last, it occurred to him that if there was no place for him in the universal scheme in his capacity as a “bright boy,” a special dispensation might permit him to enter some other sphere of usefulness. For example, in one of the advertisement columns of the newspaper he had observed that in addition to cooks, clerks, office boys, coachmen, commercial travellers, hairdressers’ assistants, and laundryman’s apprentices, who were required by various people, there was also a handy youth wanted by Messrs. Crumpett and Hawker, Publishers, 24 Trafalgar Square. Apply by Letter.
“Would you say, my father,” he inquired anxiously, “that I have credentials to fulfil the capacity of a handy youth? I am eighteen years and twelve days old; I can wash and scour the utensils in which we cook our food; I can make the fire and polish the hearthstone, and also thefire-grate; I can cleanse the bricks of the floor. And, my father, I can remove the dust from the chimney-piece; and I constantly dust and arrange the books in the shop. Would you say it would be presumptuous to offer myself in the capacity of a handy youth?”
“I think, beloved one, you are quite competent to take this course,” said his father sadly, “if you can find the courage.”
“I think I can find the courage, my father, if you will help me a little,” said the boy, with his bright eyes gleaming out of his gaunt cheeks.
They knelt together in the little room.
That evening the boy took pen, ink, note-paper and envelope, and with infinite pains composed his first letter. In a very dainty and delicately-written hand it ran as follows—
“To Messrs. Crumpett and Hawker, Publishers,24 Trafalgar Square.“Gentlemen,“It is my aspiration to serve you in the capacity of a handy youth. Should you deem me worthy of your trust, it shall be my constant aim to render myself worthy of it.“I have the honour to be, Gentlemen, your obedient and respectful servant,“William Jordan(the younger).”
“To Messrs. Crumpett and Hawker, Publishers,24 Trafalgar Square.
“Gentlemen,
“It is my aspiration to serve you in the capacity of a handy youth. Should you deem me worthy of your trust, it shall be my constant aim to render myself worthy of it.
“I have the honour to be, Gentlemen, your obedient and respectful servant,
“William Jordan(the younger).”
He showed this composition to his father, who approved it in silence. Then he stole out all alone into the darkness with an almost breathless secrecy and confided it to a letter-box in the street.
Such an adventure as this had the power to tantalize and excite him. When he sought the ancient authors as a refuge from the insurgency of his thoughts, his mind could no longer feel the spell of their magic pages.
“I pray that the postman will carry the letter to its true destination, my father,” he said anxiously.
“It is on the knees of the gods, Achilles,” said the white-haired man.