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."

"Will you be angry?" I inquired.

"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.

"Successful!" growled he. "Why, there'll be scores of other boys after
the place. You don't expect your letter's the best of the lot, do you?
Besides, they'd never have a boy up from the country when there are so
many in London ready for the place