first volume
of it in that press. You must find your own ink, pens, and blotting
paper, but we provide this table and chair. Will you be ready to-morrow?'

"'Certainly,' I answered.

"'Then, good-by, Mr. Jabez Wilson, and let me congratulate you once more
on the important position which you have been fortunate enough to gain.'
He bowed me out of the room, and I went home with my assistant hardly
knowing what to say or do, I was so pleased at my own good fortune.

"Well, I thought over the matter all day, and by evening I was in low
spirits again; for I had quite persuaded myself that the whole affair must
be some great hoax or fraud, though what its object might be I could not
imagine. It seemed altogether past belief that anyone could make such a
will, or that they would pay such a sum for doing anything so simple as
copying out the 'Encyclopaedia Britannica.' Vincent Spaulding did what he
could to cheer me up, but by bed time I had reasoned myself out of the
whole thing. However, in the morning I determined to have a look at it
anyhow, so I bought a penny bottle of ink, and with a quill pen and seven
sheets of foolscap paper I started off for Pope's Court.

"Well, to my surprise and delight everything was as right as possible. The
table was set out ready for me, and Mr. Duncan Ross was there to see that
I got fairly to work. He started me off upon the letter A, and then he
left me; but he would drop in from time to time to see that all was right
with me. At two o'clock he bade me good-day, complimented me upon the
amount that I had written, and locked the door of the office after me.

"This went on day after day, Mr. Holmes, and on Saturday the manager came
in and planked down four golden sovereigns for my week's work. It was the
same next week, and the same the week after. Every morning I was there at
ten, and every afternoon I left at two. By degrees Mr. Duncan Ross took to
coming in only once of a morning, and then, after a time, he did not come
in at all. Still, of course, I never dared to leave the room for an
instant, for I was not sure when he might come, and the billet was such a
good one, and suited me so well, that I would not risk the loss of it.

"Eight weeks passed away like this, and I had written about Abbots, and
Archery, and Armor, and Architecture, and Attica, and hoped with diligence
that I might get on to the Bs before very long. It cost me something in
foolscap, and I had pretty nearly filled