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"Mrs. Postwhistle?" The lady, from her chair behind the counter, rose slowly. "I am Mr. Nathaniel Grindley, the new assistant." The weak-kneed wastrel let fall the box with a thud upon the floor. Mrs. Postwhistle looked her new assistant up and down. "Oh!" said Mrs. Postwhistle. "Well, I shouldn't 'ave felt instinctively it must be you, not if I'd 'ad to pick you out of a crowd.
No real vice?" commented the interested Mr. Clodd. "It will go on for a week, that will," continued Mrs. Postwhistle "'e fancying 'imself a monkey. Last week he was a tortoise, and was crawling about on his stomach with a tea-tray tied on to 'is back.
On the other hand, they don't want the bother of looking after him themselves. I talked pretty straight to the old man let him see I understood the business; and well, to cut a long story short, I'm willing to take on the job, provided you really want to have done with it, and Gladman is willing in that case to let you off your contract." Mrs. Postwhistle went to the cupboard to get Mr.
Postwhistle, who seems a very sensible person. She'll board you and lodge you, and every Saturday you'll receive a post-office order for six shillings, out of which you'll find yourself in clothes. You can take with you sufficient to last you for the first six months, but no more. At the end of the year you can change if you like and go to another shop, or make your own arrangements with Mrs.
Postwhistle found her new assistant hard-working, willing, somewhat clumsy, but with a smile and a laugh that transformed mistakes, for which another would have been soundly rated, into welcome variations of the day's monotony. "If you were the sort of woman that cared to make your fortune," said one William Clodd, an old friend of Mrs.
"But I can forget it talking to you," added the gallant Mr. Clodd. Mrs. Postwhistle led the way into the little parlour. "Just the name of it," consented Mr. Clodd. "Cheerfulness combined with temperance; that's the ideal." "I'll tell you what 'appened only last night," commenced Mrs. Postwhistle, seating herself the opposite side of the loo-table. "A letter came for 'im by the seven o'clock post.
Postwhistle turned to Peter, who was jingling keys. "Well, there's the bed upstairs. It's for you to decide." "What I don't want to do," explained Peter, sinking his voice to a confidential whisper, "is to make a fool of myself." "That's always a good rule," agreed Mrs. Postwhistle, "for those to whom it's possible." "Anyhow," said Peter, "one night can't do any harm.
Clodd and Bonner's clerk, at Clodd's expense. The residue worked out at eleven hundred and sixty-nine pounds and a few shillings. Postwhistle, of Rolls Court, of ten, presented by the promoter; Mr. Postwhistle's first floor front, of one, paid for by poem published in the first number: "The Song of the Pen." Choosing a title for the paper cost much thought.
"I can't say that of 'im. Never know whether 'e's in the 'ouse or isn't, without going upstairs and knocking at the door." "Here, you tell it your own way," suggested the bewildered Clodd. "If it was anyone else but you, I should say you didn't know your own business." "'E gets on my nerves," said Mrs. Postwhistle. "You ain't in a 'urry for five minutes?" Mr. Clodd was always in a hurry.
Clodd, a heavy thud upon the floor above having caused him to start out of his chair. "'E came in an hour after you'd gone," explained Mrs. Postwhistle, "bringing with him a curtain pole as 'e'd picked up for a shilling in Clare Market. 'E's rested one end upon the mantelpiece and tied the other to the back of the easy-chair 'is idea is to twine 'imself round it and go to sleep upon it.
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