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Updated: June 21, 2025
My dreams that night were a strange mixture of Merrett, Barnacle, and Company, the little girl who fell from the pony, Jack Smith, and the jovial baker; but among them all I slept very soundly, and woke like a giant refreshed the next day. If only I had been easy in my mind about Jack Smith, I should have been positively cheerful.
Young and unsophisticated as I was, I knew quite enough of my own affairs to feel that a crisis in my life had been reached, and that a great deal, nay, everything, depended on how my application for Merrett, Barnacle, and Company's situation turned out.
"Perfectly," said I, my cheeks burning and my heart swelling within me to be thus spoken to by those whom, with all my faults, I had never once so much as dreamt of deceiving. "You did not enter this room?" "No." Mr Merrett touched his bell, and Hawkesbury appeared. I scarcely wondered he should try to avoid my eye as he stood at the table waiting.
Merrett and his friends were hearty feeders, and conversation languished for some time. Then Chadwick leaned back in his chair, and breathed heavily. "You couldn't get stuff like that at Cook's," he said. "I suppose it is a bit different," said Dunstable. "Have any of you ... noticed something queer...?" Merrett stared at Ruthven. Ruthven stared at Merrett. "I...." said Merrett.
"What we desire," said Mr Merrett, "is to come at the truth of the matter, and I can only say that it would be much better if the culprit were to make a full confession here now." He looked hard at me as he spoke, and I did my best to stand the look as an innocent man should. "A cheque for eight pounds has been missed," continued Mr Merrett, "which was only drawn yesterday, and left in the safe.
The stranger was still in the room, and eyed me as I entered in a manner which made me feel as if, whatever I was, I ought to be the guilty person. "This matter, Batchelor," began Mr Merrett, solemnly, "is more serious than we imagined. Not only has a cheque been stolen, but it has been tampered with. Look here!" So saying he held out the cheque.
By the time my first week in London was ended I had shaken down fairly well, both to my work at Merrett, Barnacle, and Company's and my quarters at Mrs Nash's. I still found the fellowship of Messrs. Doubleday and Wallop and Crow rather distracting, and more than once envied Jack his berth among the Imports where, as a rule, silence reigned supreme.
"I shall have to knock Harris down, I suppose," said Jack, so seriously that I stared at him in bewilderment. Without doubt my poor chum was preparing a warm time for himself with the Imports at Merrett, Barnacle, and Company's! That same evening he entered on his new quarters at Mrs Nash's, greatly to my joy, and greatly to the disgust of everybody else.
Smith opened his black eyes very wide. "You have to be somewhere in Hawk Street?" he asked. "Yes. Merrett, Barnacle, and Company's the name. I'm after a place they have got there." Smith's face passed through a variety of expressions, ending in the old solemn look as he quietly said, "So am I." "You!" I exclaimed. "You after the same place? Oh, Jack!" "I'm awfully sorry," said he. "I didn't know "
"So you've got an uncle, have you? Do you ever lend him your gold watch?" This witticism was lost on me. Merrett, Barnacle, and Company's. But it would never do to make myself disagreeable. "I've not got a gold watch, or a silver one either," I said. This seemed to occasion fresh merriment among my catechist and his fellows. "Why don't you say who told you to come?" demanded the clerk.
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