we could hear him being well bullied about something, while as he came
out he laughed at us both, and gave his head a peculiar shake.

"Off!" he whispered. "Flea in each ear."

I mention this because it set me thinking that if we two lads of sixteen
or seventeen did all the work for which two men were formerly kept, we
could not be quite so useless and stupid as Mr Dempster said.

I know that my handwriting was not so very good, and I was not quite so
quick with my pen as Esau, but his writing was almost like copper-plate,
and I used to feel envious; though I had one consolation--I never made
Esau's mistakes in spelling.

But nothing we ever did was right, and as the weeks went on, made bright
to me now by my visits up in North London, Esau would throw down his pen
three or four times a day, rub his hands all over his curly head, and
look over the top of the desk at me.

"Now then," he used to say; "ready?"

"Ready for what?"

"To go and 'list. We're big enough now."

"Nonsense!"

"'Tain't nonsense," he said one morning, after Mr Dempster had been a
little more disagreeable than usual about some copying not being
finished, and then gone out, leaving me thinking what I could do to give
him a little more satisfaction, so as to induce him to raise the very
paltry salary he paid me. "'Tain't nonsense. Mother says that if I
stop I shall some day rise and get to be Lord Mayor, but I don't think
Demp would like it, so when you're ready we'll go.--Ready?"

"No."

"You are a fellow!" said Esau, taking up his pen again. "I say, though,
I wish we could get places somewhere else."

"Why not try?"

"Because it would only be to do writing again, and it's what makes me so
sleepy. I'm getting worse--keep making figures and writing out
catalogues till my head gets full of 'em."

"It is tiring," I said, with a sigh. "But do go on; he'll be so cross
if that list isn't finished."

"Can't help it. I'm ever so much more sleepy this morning, and the
words get running one atop of another. Look here," he cried, holding up
a sheet of ruled paper. "This ought to have been `chest of drawers,'
and it's run into one word, `chawers'; and up higher there's another
blunder, `loo-table,'--it's gone wrong too--do you see?--`lable.' My
head's all a buzz."

"Tear it up quickly and write it again."

"Shan't; I shall correct it. No, I know. I shall cut the paper up, and
stick it on another sheet, and write these lines in ag