emed to
have come back to her, and to be talking to her now he sat there in the
old house.

"--and then I got to the next town, and my horse was tired, so I could
go no further, and looked for work. A shopkeeper agreed to hire me as
salesman. He made me sign a promise to remain six months, and he gave
me a little empty room at the back of the store to sleep in. I had still
three pounds of my own, and when you just come from the country three
pounds seems a great deal.

"When I had been in the shop three days I wanted to go away again. A
clerk in a shop has the lowest work to do of all the people. It is much
better to break stones; you have the blue sky above you, and only the
stones to bend to. I asked my master to let me go, and I offered to give
him my two pounds, and the bag of mealies I had bought with the other
pound; but he would not.

"I found out afterward he was only giving me half as much as he gave to
the others--that was why. I had fear when I looked at the other clerks
that I would at last become like them. All day they were bowing and
smirking to the women who came in; smiling, when all they wanted was to
get their money from them. They used to run and fetch the dresses and
ribbons to show them, and they seemed to me like worms with oil on.
There was one respectable thing in that store--it was the Kaffer
storeman. His work was to load and unload, and he never needed to smile
except when he liked, and he never told lies.

"The other clerks gave me the name of Old Salvation; but there was one
person I liked very much. He was clerk in another store. He often went
past the door. He seemed to me not like others--his face was bright and
fresh like a little child's. When he came to the shop I felt I liked
him. One day I saw a book in his pocket, and that made me feel near him.
I asked him if he was fond of reading, and he said, yes, when there was
nothing else to do. The next day he came to me, and asked me if I did
not feel lonely; he never saw me going out with the other fellows; he
would come and see me that evening, he said.

"I was glad, and bought some meat and flour, because the grey mare and I
always ate mealies; it is the cheapest thing; when you boil it hard you
can't eat much of it. I made some cakes, and I folded my great coat on
the box to make it softer for him; and at last he came.

"'You've got a rummy place here,' he said.

"You see there was nothing in it but packing-cases for furniture,