"Junior clerkship. An intelligent lad, respectable, and quick at figures, wanted in a merchant's office. Wages 8 shillings a week to commence. Apply by letter to Merrett, Barnacle, and Company, Hawk Street, London."
I jumped up as if I had been shot, and rushed headlong with the paper to my uncle's study.
"Look at this, uncle! This will do, I say! Read it, please."
My uncle read it gravely, and then pushed the paper from him.
"Absurd. You would not do at all. That is not one of those I marked, is it?"
"No. But they were all awful. I say, uncle, let's try for this."
My uncle stared at me, and I looked anxiously at my uncle.
"Fred," said he sternly, "I'm sorry to see you making a fool of yourself. However, it's your affair, not mine."
"But, uncle, I'm pretty quick at figures," said I.
"And intelligent and respectable too, I suppose?" added my uncle, looking at me over his glasses. "Well, do as you choose."
"Tut, tut!" said my uncle, rising, "that will do. You had better write by the next post, if you are bent on doing it. You can write at my desk."
So saying he departed, leaving me very perplexed and a good deal out of humour with my wonderful advertisement.
However, I sat down and answered it. Six of my uncle's sheets of paper were torn up before I got the first sentence to my satisfaction, and six more before the letter was done. I never wrote a letter that cost me such an agony of labour. How feverishly I read and re-read what I had written! What panics I got into about the spelling of "situation," and the number of l's in "ability"! How carefully I rubbed out the pencil- lines I had ruled, and how many times I repented I had not put a "most" before the "obediently"! Many letters like that, thought I, would shorten my life perceptibly. At last it was done, and when my uncle came in I showed it to him with fear and trembling, and watched his face anxiously as he read it.
"Humph!" said he, looking at me, "and suppose you do get the place, you won't stick to it."
"Oh yes, I will," said I; "I'll work hard and get on."
"You'd better," said my uncle, "for you'll have only yourself to depend on."
I posted my letter, and the next few days seemed interminable. Whenever I spoke about the subject to my uncle he took care not to encourage me over much. And yet I fancied, gruff as he was, he was not wholly displeased at my "cheek" in answering Merrett, Barnacle, and Company's advertisement.