two years came and went, and found
us still unchanged. One morning, at the opening of the third year, my
master did not appear, as usual, to give me my allowance for breakfast.
I went upstairs, and found him helpless in his bed. He refused to trust
me with the keys of the cupboard, or to let me send for a doctor.
I bought a morsel of bread, and went back to my books, with no more
feeling for _him_ (I honestly confess it) than he would have had for
_me_ under the same circumstances. An hour or two later I was roused
from my reading by an occasional customer of ours, a retired medical
man. He went upstairs. I was glad to get rid of him and return to my
books. He came down again, and disturbed me once more. 'I don't much
like you, my lad,' he said; 'but I think it my duty to say that you will
soon have to shift for yourself. You are no great favorite in the
town, and you may have some difficulty in finding a new place. Provide
yourself with a written character from your master before it is too
late.' He spoke to me coldly. I thanked him coldly on my side, and got
my character the same day. Do you think my master let me have it
for nothing? Not he! He bargained with me on his deathbed. I was his
creditor for a month's salary, and he wouldn't write a line of my
testimonial until I had first promised to forgive him the debt. Three
days afterward he died, enjoying to the last the happiness of having
overreached his shop-man. 'Aha!' he whispered, when the doctor
formally summoned me to take leave of him, 'I got you cheap!' Was Ozias
Midwinter's stick as cruel as that? I think not. Well! there I was, out
on the world again, but surely with better prospects this time. I had
taught myself to read Latin, Greek, and German; and I had got my written
character to speak for me. All useless! The doctor was quite right; I
was not liked in the town. The lower order of the people despised me for
selling my services to the miser at the miser's price. As for the better
classes, I did with them (God knows how!) what I have always done with
everybody except Mr. Armadale--I produced a disagreeable impression at
first sight; I couldn't mend it afterward; and there was an end of me
in respectable quarters. It is quite likely I might have spent all my
savings, my puny little golden offspring of two years' miserable
growth, but for a school advertisement which I saw in a local paper. The
heartlessly mean terms that were offered encouraged me to appl