"Why, Holt, you must know very well. We ask them whether they cannot
get work."
"Work!" cried Holt.
"Yes," said Mr Tooke. "The fathers and uncles of both of you work for
what money they have; and so do I; and so does every man among our
neighbours who is satisfied with his condition. As far as I see, you
must get the money you want in the same way."
"Work!" exclaimed Holt again.
"How is he to get work?" asked Hugh.
"That is where I hope to assist him," replied Mr Tooke. "Are you
willing to earn your half-crown, Holt?"
"I don't know how, sir."
"Widow Murray thinks she should have a better chance for a new lodger if
her little parlour was fresh papered; but she is too rheumatic to do it
herself, and cannot afford to engage a workman. If you like to try,
under her directions, I will pay you as your work deserves."
"But, sir, I never papered a room in my life."
"No more had the best paper-hanger in London when he first tried. But
if you do not like that work, what do you think of doing some writing
for me? Our tables of rules are dirty. If you will make good copies of
our rules for all the rooms in which they hang, in the course of the
holidays, I will pay you half-a-crown. But the copies must be quite
correct, and the writing good. I can offer you one other choice. Our
school library wants looking to. If you will put fresh paper covers to
all the books that want covering, write the titles on the backs, compare
the whole with the catalogue, and arrange them properly on the shelves,
I will pay you half-a-crown."
Holt's pleasure in the prospect of being out of debt was swallowed up in
the anxiety of undertaking anything so new to him as work out of school.
Hugh hurried him on to a decision.
"Do choose the papering," urged Hugh. "I can help you in that, I do
believe. I can walk that little way, to widow Murray's; and I can paste
the paper. Widow Murray will show you how to do it; and it is very
easy, if you once learn to join the pattern. I found that, when I
helped to paper the nursery closet at home."
"It is an easy pattern to join," said Mr Tooke.
"There now! And that is the chief thing. If you do the library books,
I cannot help you, you know. And remember, you will have two miles to
walk each way; four miles a-day in addition to the work."
"He can sleep at Crofton, if he likes," said Mr Tooke.
"That would be a queer way of staying at uncle Shaw's," observed Hugh.
"Then there is copying the rules," said Holt. "I might do that here;
and you might help me, if you liked."
"Dull work!" exclaimed Hugh. "Think of copying the same rules three or
four times over! And then, if you make mistakes, if you do not write
clearly, where is your half-crown? I don't mean that I would not help
you, but it would be the dullest work of all."
Mr Tooke sat patiently waiting till Holt had made up his mind. He
perceived something that never entered Hugh's mind: that Holt's pride
was hurt at the notion of doing workman's work. He wrote on a slip of
paper these few words, and pushed them across the table to Holt, with a
smile:--
"No debtor's hands are clean, however white they be: Who digs and pays
his way--the true gentleman is he."
Holt coloured as he read, and immediately said that he chose the
papering job. Mr Tooke rose, tossed the slip of paper into the fire,
buttoned up his coat, and said that he should let widow Murray know that
a workman would wait upon her the next morning, and that she must have
her paste and brushes and scissors ready.
"And a pair of steps," said Hugh, with a sigh.
"Steps, of course," replied Mr Tooke. "You will think it a pretty
paper, I am sure."
"But, sir, she must quite understand that she is not at all obliged to
us,--that is, to me," said Holt.
"Certainly. You will tell her so yourself, of course."
Here again Holt's pride was hurt; but the thought of being out of
Meredith's power sustained him.