re money enters, and as little
writing as possible, and no arithmetic, if you can help it."

"That will be a strange sort of clerkship," said M'Gruder, with a smile;
"but we 'll see what can be done."

CHAPTER XLVIII. "IN RAGS"

If Tony Butler's success in his new career only depended on his zeal,
he would have been a model clerk. Never did any one address himself to
a new undertaking with a stronger resolution to comprehend all its
details, and conquer all its difficulties. First of all, he desired to
show his gratitude to the good fellow who had helped him; and secondly,
he was eager to prove, if proven it could be, that he was not utterly
incapable of earning his bread, nor one of those hopeless creatures who
are doomed from their birth to be a burden to others.

So long as his occupation led him out of doors, conveying orders here
and directions there, he got on pretty well. He soon picked up a sort of
Italian of his own, intelligible enough to those accustomed to it;
and as he was alert, active, and untiring, he looked, at least, a most
valuable assistant. Whenever it came to indoor work and the pen, his
heart sank within him; he knew that his hour of trial had come, and he
had no strength to meet it. He would mistake the letter-book for the
ledger or the day-book; and he would make entries in one which should
have been in the other, and then, worst of all, erase them, or append an
explanation of his blunder that would fill half a page with inscrutable
blottedness.

As to payments, he jotted them down anywhere, and in his anxiety to
compose confidential letters with due care, he would usually make three
or four rough drafts of the matter, quite sufficient to impart the
contents to the rest of the office.

Sam M'Gruder bore nobly up under these trials. He sometimes laughed at
the mistakes, did his best to remedy,--never rebuked them. At last,
as he saw that poor Tony's difficulties, instead of diminishing, only
increased with time, inasmuch as his despair of himself led him into
deeper embarrassments, M'Gruder determined Tony should be entirely
employed in journeys and excursions here and there through the
country,--an occupation, it is but fair to own, invented to afford him
employment, rather than necessitated by any demands of the business.
Not that Tony had the vaguest suspicion of this. Indeed, he wrote to his
mother a letter filled with an account of his active and useful labors.
Proud was he at las