understand the author, his allusions, quotations,
footnotes, and references, he grew giddy, and at last the words grew
blurred, and he had to read sentences over and over again to make sense
of them, which slid out of his mind like so much quicksilver.

Lunch-time came, and Pringle crept through the place where he was
seated, glanced at Mr Brandon's door, stepped close up, and whispered--

"I'm going to get my dinner. Don't look downhearted about a wigging,
Mr Tom. It's nothing when you're used to it."

"Ahem!" came from the inner office, and Pringle made a grimace like a
pantomime clown, suggesting mock horror and fear, as he glided to the
outer door, where he turned, looked back, and then disappeared; while,
as soon as he was alone, Tom took out a paper of sandwiches, opened it,
and began to eat, it being an understood thing that he should not leave
the office all day.

But those sandwiches, good enough of their kind, tasted as if they were
made of sawdust, and he had hard work to get them down, and then only by
the help of a glass of water from the table-filter, standing at the side
of the office--kept, Pringle said, to revive unfortunate clients whose
affairs were going to the bad. Every now and then a cough was heard
from the inner office, and Tom hurried over his meal in dread lest his
uncle should appear before he had finished. Then, as soon as the last
was eaten, and the paper thrust into the waste-basket, the boy attacked
his book once more, and had hardly recommenced when the inner office
door opened, and his uncle appeared, looking at him sharply--ready, Tom
thought, to find fault with him for being so long over his midday meal.

But there was nothing to complain about.

"I'm going to have my lunch," he said sharply, "and I may not come back,
though all the same I may. Mind that man Pringle goes on with his work,
and don't let me have any fault to find about your reading. When you go
home tell them to give you something to eat, for there will be no
regular dinner to-day, as I shall be out. Take home any letters that
may come, in case I don't look in."

"All right, uncle."

"And don't speak in that free-and-easy, offhand, unbusiness-like manner.
Say `Yes, sir,' and `No, sir,' if you are not too stupid to remember."

He put on his hat and went out, leaving the boy feeling as if a fresh
sting had been planted in his breast, and his brow wrinkled up more than
ever, while his heart grew more heavy