Reginald Cruden, Talbot Baines Reed [best black authors txt] 📗

our two heroes took Citywards that Monday morning was not a very cheerful one. It seemed like walking out of one life into another. Behind, like a dream, were the joyous, merry days spent at Garden Vale and Wilderham, with no care for the future, and no want for the present. Before them, still more like a dream, lay the prospect of their new work, with all its anxiety, and drudgery, and weariness, and the miserable eighteen shillings a week it promised them; and, equally wretched at the present moment, there was the vision of their desolate mother, alone in the Dull Street lodgings, where they had just left her, unable at the last to hide the misery with which she saw her two boys start out into the pitiless world.

The boys walked for some time in silence; then Horace said,—

“Old man, I hope, whatever they do, they’ll let us be together at this place.”

“We needn’t expect any such luck,” said Reginald. “It wouldn’t be half so bad if they would.”

“You know,” said Horace, “I can’t help hoping they’ll take us as clerks, at least. They must know we’re educated, and more fit for that sort of work than—”

“Than doing common labourer’s work,” said Reg. “Rather! If they’d put us to some of the literary work, you know, Horace—editing, or correcting, or reporting, or that sort of thing, I could stand that. There are plenty of swells who began like that. I’m pretty well up in classics, you know, and—well, they might be rather glad to have some one who was.”

Horace sighed.

“Richmond spoke as if we were to be taken on as ordinary workmen.”

“Oh, Richmond’s an ass,” said Reg, full of his new idea; “he knows nothing about it. I tell you, Horace, they wouldn’t be such idiots as to waste our education when they could make use of it. Richmond only knows the manager, but the editor is the chief man, after all.”

By this time they had reached Fleet Street, and their attention was absorbed in finding the by-street in which was situated the scene of their coming labours. They found it at last, and with beating hearts saw before them a building surmounted by a board, bearing in characters of gold the legend, Rocket Newspaper Company, Limited.

The boys stood a moment outside, and the courage which had been slowly rising during the walk evaporated in an instant. Ugly and grimy as the building was, it seemed to them like some fairy castle before which they shrank into insignificance. A board inscribed, “Work-people’s Entrance,” with a hand on it pointing to a narrow side court, confronted them, and mechanically they turned that way. Reginald did for a moment hesitate as he passed the editor’s door, but it was no use. The two boys turned slowly into the court, where, amid the din of machinery, and a stifling smell of ink and rollers, they found the narrow passage which conducted them to their destination.

A man at a desk half way down the passage intercepted their progress.

“Now, then, young fellows, what is it?”

“We want to see the manager, please,” said Horace.

“No use to-day, my lad. No boys wanted; we’re full up.”

“We want to see the manager,” said Reginald, offended at the man’s tone, and not disposed to humour it.

“Tell you we want no boys; can’t you see the notice up outside?”

“Look here!” said Reginald, firing up, and heedless of his brother’s deprecating look; “we don’t want any of your cheek. Tell the manager we’re here, will you, and look sharp?”

The timekeeper stared at the boy in amazement for a moment, and then broke out with,—

“Take your hook, do you hear, you—or I’ll warm you.”

“It’s a mistake,” put in Horace, hurriedly. “Mr Richmond said we were to come here to see the manager at nine o’clock.”

“And couldn’t you have said so at first?” growled the man, with his hand still on his ruler, and glaring at Reginald, “without giving yourselves airs as if you were gentry? Go on in, and don’t stand gaping there.”

“For goodness’ sake, Reg,” whispered Horace, as they knocked at the manager’s door, “don’t flare up like that, you’ll spoil all our chance.”

Reg said nothing, but he breathed hard, and his face was angry still.

“Come in!” cried a sharp voice, in answer to their knock.

They obeyed, and found a man standing with a pen in his mouth at a desk, searching through a file of papers. He went on with his work till he found what he wanted, apparently quite unconscious of the boys’ presence. Then he rang a bell for an overseer, whistled down a tube for a clerk, and shouted out of the door for a messenger, and gave orders to each. Then he sent for some one else, and gave him a scolding that made the unlucky recipient’s hair stand on end; then he received a visit from a friend, with whom he chatted and joked for a pleasant quarter of an hour; then he took up the morning paper and skimmed through it, whistling to himself as he did so; then he rang another bell and told the errand-boy who answered it to bring him in at one o’clock sharp a large boiled beef underdone, with carrots and turnips, and a pint of “s. and b.” (whatever that might mean). Then he suddenly became aware of the fact that he had visitors, and turned inquiringly to the two boys.

“Mr Richmond—” began Horace, in answer to his look.

But the manager cut him short.

“Oh, ah! yes,” he said. “Nuisance! Go to the composing-room and ask for Mr Durfy.”

Saying which he sat down again at his desk, and became absorbed in his papers.

It was hardly a flattering reception, and gave our heroes very little chance of showing off their classical proficiency. They had at least expected, as Mr Richmond’s nominees, rather more than a half glance from the manager; and to be thus summarily turned over to a Mr Durfy before they had as much as opened their mouths was decidedly unpromising.

Reginald did make one feeble effort to prolong the interview, and to impress the manager at the same time.

“Excuse me,” said he, in his politest tones, “would you mind directing us to the composing-room? My brother and I don’t know the geography of the place yet.”

“Eh? Composing-room? Get a boy to show you. Plenty outside.”

It was no go, evidently; and they turned dismally from the room.

The errand-boy was coming up the passage as they emerged—the same errand-boy they had seen half an hour ago in the manager’s room; but, as their classical friends would say—

“Quantum mutatus ab illo Hectore!”

His two arms were strung with the handles of frothing tin cans from the elbow to the wrist. He carried two tin cans in his mouth. His apron was loaded to bursting with bread, fish, cheese, potatoes, and other edibles; the necks of bottles protruded from all his pocket’s,—from the bosom of his jacket and from the fob of his breeches,—and round his neck hung a ponderous chain of onions. In short, the errand-boy was busy; and our heroes, even with their short experience of business life, saw that there was little hope of extracting information from him under present circumstances.

So they let him pass, and waited for another. They had not to wait long, for the passage appeared to be a regular highway for the junior members of the staff of the Rocket Newspaper Company, Limited. But though several boys came, it was some time before one appeared whose convenience it suited to conduct our heroes to the presence of Mr Durfy. Just, however, as their patience was getting exhausted, and Reginald was making up his mind to shake the dust of the place from his feet, a boy appeared and offered to escort them to the composing-room.

They followed him up several flights of a rickety staircase, and down some labyrinthine passages to a large room where some forty or fifty men were busy setting up type. At the far end of this room, at a small table, crowded with “proofs,” sat a red-faced individual whom the boy pointed out as “Duffy.”

“Well, now, what do you want?” asked he, as the brothers approached.

“The manager said we were to ask for Mr Durfy,” said Reginald.

“I wish to goodness he’d keep you down there; he knows I’m crowded out with boys. He always serves me that way, and I’ll tell him so one of these days.”

This last speech, though apparently addressed to the boys, was really a soliloquy on Mr Durfy’s part; but for all that it failed to enchant his audience. They had not, in their most sanguine moments, expected much, but this was even rather less than they had counted on.

Mr Durfy mused for some time, then, turning to Reginald, he said,—

“Do you know your letters?”

Here was a question to put to the captain of the fifth at Wilderham!

“I believe I do,” said Reginald, with a touch of scorn in his voice which was quite lost on the practical Mr Durfy.

“What do you mean by believe? Do you, or do you not?”

“Of course I do.”

“Then why couldn’t you say so at once? Take this bit of copy and set it up at that case there. And you, young fellow, take these proofs to the sub-editor’s room, and say I’ve not had the last sheet of the copy of the railway accident yet, and I’m standing for it. Cut away.”

Horace went off.

“After all,” thought he to himself, “what’s the use of being particular? I suppose I’m what they call a ‘printer’s devil’; nothing like starting modestly! Here goes for my lords the sub-editors, and the last page of the railway accident.”

And he spent a festive ten-minutes hunting out the sub-editor’s domains, and possessing himself of the missing copy.

With Reginald, however, it fared otherwise. A fellow may be head of the fifth at a public school, and yet not know his letters in a printing-office, and after five or ten-minutes’ hopeless endeavour to comprehend the geography of a typecase, he was obliged to acknowledge himself beaten and apprise Mr Durfy of the fact.

“I’m sorry I misunderstood you,” said he, putting the copy down on the table. “I’m not used to printing.”

“No,” said Mr Durfy, scornfully, “I guessed not. You’re too stuck-up for us, I can tell you. Here, Barber.”

An unhealthy-looking young man answered to the name.

“Take this chap here to the back case-room, and see he sweeps it out and dusts the cases. See if that’ll suit your abilities, my dandy”; and without waiting to hear Reginald’s explanations or remonstrances, Mr Durfy walked off, leaving the unlucky boy in the hands of Mr Barber.

“Now, then, stir your stumps, Mr Dandy,” said the latter. “It’ll take you all your time to get that shop straight, I can tell you, so you’d better pull up your boots. Got a broom?”

“No,” muttered Reg, through his teeth, “I’ve not got a broom.”

“Go and get that one, then, out of the corner there.”

Reginald flushed crimson, and hesitated a moment.

“Do you ’ear? Are you deaf? Get that one there.”

Reginald got it, and trailing it behind him dismally, followed his guide to the back case-room. It was a small room, which apparently had known neither broom nor water for years. The floor was thick with dirt, and the cases ranged in the racks against the walls were coated with dust.

“There you are,” said Mr Barber. “Open the window, do you ’ear? and don’t let none of the dust get out into the composing-room, or there’ll be a row. Come and tell me when you’ve done the floor, and I’ll show you ’ow to do them cases. Rattle along, do you ’ear? or you won’t get it done to-day;” and Mr Barber, who had had his day of sweeping out the shops, departed, slamming the door behind him.

Things had come to a crisis with Reginald Cruden early in his business career.

He had come into the City that morning prepared to face a good deal. He had not counted