So this was business! It was not the business he desired and meant to
have; and he was uneasy at the extent to which he was already entangled
in it; but it was rather amusing, and his father had really been very
friendly. He felt a sense of importance.
Soon afterwards Clara ran into the shop to speak to Miss Ingamells. The
two chatted and giggled together.
"Father's gone to Manchester," he found opportunity to say to Clara as
she was leaving.
"Why aren't you doing those prizes he told you to do?" retorted Clara,
and vanished, She wanted none of Edwin's superior airs.
During dinner Mr Clayhanger had instructed his son to go through the
Sunday school prize stock and make an in_ven_tory of it.
This injunction from the child Clara, which Miss Ingamells had certainly
overheard, prevented him, as an independent man, from beginning his work
for at least ten minutes. He whistled, opened his father's desk and
stared vacantly into it, examined the pen-nib case in detail, and tore
off two leaves from the date calendar so that it should be ready for
Monday. He had a great scorn for Miss Ingamells, who was a personable
if somewhat heavy creature of twenty-eight, because she kept company
with a young man. He had caught them arm-in-arm and practically hugging
each other, one Sunday afternoon in the street. He could see naught but
silliness in that kind of thing.
The entrance of a customer caused him to turn abruptly to the high
shelves where the books were kept. He was glad that the customer was
not Mr Enoch Peake, the expectation of whose arrival made him curiously
nervous. He placed the step-ladder against the shelves, climbed up, and
began to finger volumes and parcels of volumes. The dust was
incredible. The disorder filled him with contempt. It was astounding
that his father could tolerate such disorder; no doubt the whole shop
was in the same condition. "Thirteen Archie's Old Desk," he read on a
parcel, but when he opened the parcel he found seven "From Jest to
Earnest." Hence he had to undo every parcel. However, the work was
easy. He first wrote the inventory in pencil, then he copied it in ink;
then he folded it, and wrote very carefully on the back, because his
father had a mania for endorsing documents in the legal manner:
"Inventory of Sunday school prize stock." And after an instant's
hesitation he added his own initials. Then he began to tie up and
restore the parcels and the single volumes. None of all this literature
had any charm for him. He possessed five or six such books, all gilt
and chromatic, which had been awarded to him at Sunday school, `suitably
inscribed,' for doing nothing in particular; and he regarded them
without exception as frauds upon boyhood. However, Clara had always
enjoyed reading them. But lying flat on one of the top shelves he
discovered, nearly at the end of his task, an oblong tome which did
interest him: "Cazenove's Architectural Views of European Capitals, with
descriptive letterpress." It had an old-fashioned look, and was
probably some relic of his father's predecessor in the establishment.
Another example of the lack of order which prevailed!
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