第 6 页

are fortunes made in the city, and no honest work is dishonouring

even to a gentleman's son."

"Not at all, Mistress," Cyril said warmly. "'Tis assuredly not on

that account that I would fain seek more stirring employment; but it

was always my father's wish and intention that, should there be no

chance of his ever regaining the estate, I should enter foreign

service, and I have always looked forward to that career."

"Well, I will wager that you will do credit to it, lad," Captain Dave

said. "You have proved that you are ready to turn your hand to any

work that may come to you. You have shown a manly spirit, my boy, and

I honour you for it; and by St. Anthony I believe that some day,

unless a musket-ball or a pike-thrust brings you up with a round

turn, you will live to get your own back again."

Cyril remained talking for another two hours, and then betook himself

to bed. After he had gone, Mistress Dowsett said, after a pause,--

"Do you not think, David, that, seeing that Cyril is the son of a

Knight, it would be more becoming to give him the room downstairs

instead of the attic where he is now lodged?"

The old sailor laughed.

"That is woman-kind all over," he said. "It was good enough for him

before, and now forsooth, because the lad mentioned, and assuredly in

no boasting way, that his father had been a Knight, he is to be

treated differently. He would not thank you himself for making the

change, dame. In the first place, it would make him uncomfortable,

and he might make an excuse to leave us altogether; and in the

second, you may be sure that he has been used to no better quarters

than those he has got. The Royalists in France were put to sore

shifts to live, and I fancy that he has fared no better since he came

home. His father would never have consented to his going out to earn

money by keeping the accounts of little city traders like myself had

it not been that he was driven to it by want. No, no, wife; let the

boy go on as he is, and make no difference in any way. I liked him

before, and I like him all the better now, for putting his

gentlemanship in his pocket and setting manfully to work instead of

hanging on the skirts of some Royalist who has fared better than his

father did. He is grateful as it is--that is easy to see--for our

taking him in here. We did that partly because he proved a good

worker and has taken a lot of care off my shoulders, partly because

he was fatherless and alone. I would not have him think that we are

ready to do more because he is a Knight's son. Let the boy be, and

suffer him to steer his ship his own course. If, when the time comes,

we can further his objects in any way we will do it with right good

will. What do you think of him, Nellie?" he asked, changing the

subject.

"He is a proper young fellow, father, and I shall be well content to

go abroad escorted by him instead of having your apprentice, Robert

Ashford, in attendance on me. He has not a word to say for himself,

and truly I like him not in anyway."

"He is not a bad apprentice, Nellie, and John Wilkes has but seldom

cause to find fault with him, though I own that I have no great

liking myself for him; he never seems to look one well in the face,

which, I take it, is always a bad sign. I know no harm of him; but

when his apprenticeship is out, which it will be in another year, I

shall let him go his own way, for I should not care to have him on

the premises."

"Methinks you are very unjust, David. The lad is quiet and regular in

his ways; he goes twice every Sunday to the Church of St. Alphage,

and always tells me the texts of the sermons."

The Captain grunted.

"Maybe so, wife; but it is easy to get hold of the text of a sermon

without having heard it. I have my doubts whether he goes as

regularly to St. Alphage's as he says he does. Why could he not go

with us to St. Bennet's?"

"He says he likes the administrations of Mr. Catlin better, David.

And, in truth, our parson is not one of the stirring kind."

"So much the better," Captain Dave said bluntly. "I like not these

men that thump the pulpit and make as if they were about to jump out

head foremost. However, I don't suppose there is much harm in the

lad, and it may be that his failure to look one in the face is not so

much his fault as that of nature, which endowed him with a villainous

squint. Well, let us turn in; it is past nine o'clock, and high time

to be a-bed."

Cyril seemed to himself to have entered upon a new life when he

stepped across the threshold of David Dowsett's store. All his cares

and anxieties had dropped from him. For the past two years he had

lived the life of an automaton, starting early to his work, returning

in the middle of the day to his dinner,--to which as often as not he

sat down alone,--and spending his evenings in utter loneliness in the

bare garret, where he was generally in bed long before his father

returned. He blamed himself sometimes during the first fortnight of

his stay here for the feeling of light-heartedness that at times came

over him. He had loved his father in spite of his faults, and should,

he told himself, have felt deeply depressed at his loss; but nature

was too strong for him. The pleasant evenings with Captain Dave and

his family were to him delightful; he was like a traveller who, after

a cold and cheerless journey, comes in to the warmth of a fire, and

feels a glow of comfort as the blood circulates briskly through his

veins. Sometimes, when he had no other engagements, he went out with

Nellie Dowsett, whose lively chatter was new and very amusing to him.

Sometimes they went up into Cheapside, and into St. Paul's, but more

often sallied out of the city at Aldgate, and walked into the fields.

On these occasions he carried a stout cane that had been his

father's, for Nellie tried in vain to persuade him to gird on a

sword.

"You are a gentleman, Cyril," she would argue, "and have a right to

carry one."

"I am for the present a sober citizen, Mistress Nellie, and do not

wish to assume to be of any other condition. Those one sees with

swords are either gentlemen of the Court, or common bullies, or maybe

highwaymen. After nightfall it is different; for then many citizens

carry their swords, which indeed are necessary to protect them from

the ruffians who, in spite of the city watch, oftentimes attack quiet

passers-by; and if at any time I escort you to the house of one of

your friends, I shall be ready to take my sword with me. But in the

daytime there is no occasion for a weapon, and, moreover, I am full

young to carry one, and this stout cane would, were it necessary, do

me good service, for I learned in France the exercise that they call

the _baton_, which differs little from our English singlestick."

While Cyril was received almost as a member of the family by Captain

Dave and his wife, and found himself on excellent terms with John

Wilkes, he saw that he was viewed with dislike by the two

apprentices. He was scarcely surprised at this. Before his coming,

Robert Ashford had been in the habit of escorting his young mistress

when she went out, and had no doubt liked these expeditions, as a

change from the measuring out of ropes and weighing of iron in the

store. Then, again, the apprentices did not join in the conversation

at table unless a remark was specially addressed to them; and as

Captain Dave was by no means fond of his elder apprentice, it was but

seldom that he spoke to him. Robert Ashford was between eighteen and

nineteen. He was no taller than Cyril, but it would have been

difficult to judge his age by his face, which had a wizened look;

and, as Nellie said one day, in his absence, he might pass very well

for sixty.

It was easy enough for Cyril to see that Robert Ashford heartily

disliked him; the covert scowls that he threw across the table at

meal-time, and the way in which he turned his head and feigned to be

too busy to notice him as he passed through the shop, were sufficient

indications of ill-will. The younger apprentice, Tom Frost, was but a

boy of fifteen; he gave Cyril the idea of being a timid lad. He did

not appear to share his comrade's hostility to him, but once or

twice, when Cyril came out from the office after making up the

accounts of the day, he fancied that the boy glanced at him with an

expression of anxiety, if not of terror.

"If it were not," Cyril said to himself, "that Tom is clearly too

nervous and timid to venture upon an act of dishonesty, I should say

that he had been pilfering something; but I feel sure that he would

not attempt such a thing as that, though I am by no means certain

that Robert Ashford, with his foxy face and cross eyes, would not

steal his master's goods or any one else's did he get the chance.

Unless he were caught in the act, he could do it with impunity, for

everything here is carried on in such a free-and-easy fashion that

any amount of goods might be carried off without their being missed."

After thinking the matter over, he said, one afternoon when his

employer came in while he was occupied at the accounts,--

"I have not seen anything of a stock-book, Captain Dave. Everything

else is now straight, and balanced up to to-day. Here is the book of

goods sold, the book of goods received, and the ledger with the

accounts; but there is no stock-book such as I find in almost all the

other places where I work."

"What do I want with a stock-book?" Captain Dave asked.

"You cannot know how you stand without it," Cyril replied. "You know

how much you have paid, and how much you have received during the

year; but unless you have a stock-book you do not know whether the

difference between the receipts and expenditure represents profit,

for the stock may have so fallen in value during the year that you

may really have made a loss while seeming to make a profit."

"How can that be?" Captain Dave asked. "I get a fair profit on every

article."

"There ought to be a profit, of course," Cyril said; "but sometimes

it is found not to be so. Moreover, if there is a stock-book you can

tell at any time, without the trouble of opening bins and weighing

metal, how much stock you have of each article you sell, and can

order your goods accordingly."

"How would you do that?"

"It is very simple, Captain Dave," Cyril said. "After taking stock of

the whole of the goods, I should have a ledger in which each article

would have a page or more to itself, and every day I should enter

from John Wilkes's sales-book a list of the goods that have gone out,

each under its own heading. Thus, at any moment, if you were to ask

how much chain you had got in stock I could tell you within a fathom.

When did you take stock last?"

"I should say it was about fifteen months since. It was only

yesterday John Wilkes was saying we had better have a thorough

overhauling."

"Quite time, too, I should think, Captain Dave. I suppose you have

got the account of your last stock-taking, with the date of it?"

"Oh, yes, I have got that;" and the Captain unlocked his desk and

took out an account-book. "It has been lying there ever since. It

took a wonderful lot of trouble to do, and I had a clerk and two men

in for a fortnight, for of course John and the boys were attending to

their usual duties. I have often wondered since why I should have had

all that trouble over a matter that has never been of the slightest

use to me."

"Well, I hope you will take it again, sir; it is a trouble, no doubt,

but you will find it a great advantage."

"Are you sure you think it needful, Cyril?"

"Most needful, Captain Dave. You will see the advantage of it

afterwards."

"Well, if you think so, I suppose it must be done," the Captain said,

with a sigh; "but it will be giving you a lot of trouble to keep this

new book of yours."

"That is nothing, sir. Now that I have got all the back work up it

will be a simple matter to keep the daily work straight. I shall find

ample time to do it without any need of lengthening my hours."

Cyril now set to work in earnest, and telling Mrs. Dowsett he had

some books that he wanted to make up in his room before going to bed,

he asked her to allow him to keep his light burning.

Mrs. Dowsett consented, but shook her head and said he would

assuredly injure his health if he worked by candle light.

Fortunately, John Wilkes had just opened a fresh sales-book, and

Cyril told him that he wished to refer to some particulars in the

back books. He first opened the ledger by inscribing under their

different heads the amount of each description of goods kept in stock

at the last stock-taking, and then entered under their respective

heads all the sales that had been made, while on an opposite page he

entered the amount purchased. It took him a month's hard work, and he

finished it on the very day that the new stock-taking concluded.

CHAPTER III

A THIEF SOMEWHERE

Two days after the conclusion of the stock-taking, Cyril said, after

breakfast was over,--

"Would it trouble you, Captain Dave, to give me an hour up here

before you go downstairs to the counting-house. I am free for two

hours now, and there is a matter upon which I should like to speak to

you privately."

"Certainly, lad," the old sailor said, somewhat surprised. "We shall

be quiet enough here, as soon as the table is cleared. My dame and

Nellie will be helping the maid do up the cabins, and will then be

sallying out marketing."

When the maid had cleared the table, Cyril went up to his room and

returned with a large ledger and several smaller books.

"I have, for the last month, Captain Dave, been making up this