XIII
Byan odd fatality the postman did carry the letter to its true destination, and on the evening of the following day his peculiar tap was heard at the letter-box on the door of the shop.
Pale with excitement, the boy rose from his book.
“A letter!” he cried. “There is something here in my heart, O my father, that tells me it is from Messrs. Crumpett and Hawker, Publishers, 24 Trafalgar Square.”
He groped his way through the darkness of the shop, and placed his hand in the letter-box on the outer door. Yes, there was a letter. As he bore it to the light of the little room, it seemed to sear his fingers. It was addressed to “Mr. William Jordan, Junior, 43 Milton Street, E.C.” On the back of the envelope was stamped “Crumpett and Hawker, Publishers, 24 Trafalgar Square.”
He tore the letter out of its envelope. His heart seemed to stand still. The letter said—
“Messrs. Crumpett and Hawker will be obliged if William Jordan, Junior, will wait upon them to-morrow (Wednesday) morning at twelve o’clock.”
After pressing his lips to this typewritten communication he gave it to his father.
“There, my father,” he said, with a devout simplicity, “I knew it would be so; it was written in my destiny.”
His father read the letter, and handed it back to him. He could not find a word to speak; neither did he direct a glance at the exalted face.
Presently they knelt again together in the little room.
That night of all nights it was not to be expected that the boy would close his eyes. As he lay in his bed with his gaze ever reciprocating the curious brightness of the stars, he speculated at times on what the morrow would bring forth; at other times he reviewed the sum total of his knowledge in thepractical sciences. He composed carefully, word by word, the phrases he must use on the morrow to Messrs. Crumpett and Hawker; he rehearsed in a soft voice, with his rapt eyes ever fixed on the fragment of the empyrean that shone through the curtainless window, in spite of the gables and chimney-stacks which tried so hard to shut it out, the manner in which these words must be spoken. In the middle of the night, as the clocks were chiming three, he rose from his bed, and walked about the darkness with bare feet and clad only in his night-gown, muttering in his gentle voice as he clenched his hands, “Courage, Achilles!”
At five o’clock he rose and put on his clothes. Descending the stairs he cleaned the fire-grate, made the fire, whitened the hearthstone, and scrubbed the floor of the little room. Then in a vain endeavour to allay his excitement he read some of the pages of the ancient authors that he cherished most. At the breakfast hour he refused a delicate piece of bread-and-butter that his father cut for him, but drank a copious draught of milk. At nine o’clock he requested his father to accompany him to have his hair cut.
No sooner, however, had they come to the end of the street than the boy suddenly stayed his steps.
“No, no, my father,” he said, with a look that was almost imperious. “I would have you return to the shop. This day I must walk alone.”
“As you will, Achilles,” said his father, turning upon his heel.
An instant later, however, the white-haired man had turned again to watch the frail figure cross the street and enter a hairdresser’s shop.