"But who's your letter from, Reg?" asked Mrs Cruden.

"Oh, just a line from Bland," replied he, hastily putting it into his pocket; "he gives no news."

If truth must be told, Blandford's letter was not a very nice one, and Reginald felt it. He did not care to hear it read aloud in contrast with Harker's warm-hearted letter. Blandford had written,--

"Dear Cruden,--I hope it's not true about your father's money going all wrong. It is a great sell, and fellows here, I know, will be very sorry. Never mind, I suppose there's enough left to make a decent show; and between you and me it would go down awfully well with the fellows here if you could send your usual subscription to the football club.

Harker says you'll have to leave Garden Vale. I'm awfully sorry, as I always enjoyed my visits there so much. What are you going to do? Why don't you try for the army? The exams are not very hard, my brother told me, and of course it's awfully respectable, if one must work for one's living. I must stop now, or I shall miss tennis. Excuse more.

"Yours truly,--

"G. Blandford."

Reginald knew the letter was a cold and selfish one, but it left two things sticking in his mind which rankled there for a long time. One was that, come what would, he would send a guinea to the school football club. The other was--was it _quite_ out of the question that he should go into the army?

"Awfully rough on Reg," said Horace, "being so near that scholarship.

It'll be no use to Wilkins, not a bit, and fifty pounds a year would be something to--"

Horace was going to say "us," but he pulled up in time and said "Reg."

"Well," said Reg, "as things have turned out it might have come in useful. I wonder if it wouldn't have been wiser, mother, for me to have stayed up this term and made sure of it?"

"I wish you could, Reg; but we have no right to think of it. Besides, you could only have held it if you had gone to college."

"Oh, of course," said Reg; "but then it would have paid a good bit of my expenses there; and I might have gone on from there to the army, you know, and got my commission."

Mrs Cruden sighed. What an awakening the boy had still to pa.s.s through!

"We must think of something less grand than that, my poor Reg," said she; "and something we can share all together. I hope Mr Richmond will be able to hear of some business opening for me, as well as you, for we shall need to put our resources together to get on."

"Mother," exclaimed Reginald, overwhelmed with sudden contrition, "what a selfish brute you must think me! You don't think I'd let you work while I had a nerve left. I'll do anything--so will Horace, but you _shall not_, mother, you _shall not_."

Mrs Cruden did not argue the point just then, and in due time Mr Richmond arrived to give a new direction to their thoughts.

The investment he proposed seemed a good one. But, in fact, the little family knew so little about business generally, and money matters in particular, that had it been the worst security possible they would have hardly been the wiser.

This point settled, Mr Richmond turned to his proposals for the boys.

"As I said in my letter, Mrs Cruden," said he, "the opening is only a modest one. A company has lately been formed to print and publish an evening paper in the city, and as solicitor to the company I had an opportunity of mentioning your sons to the manager. He is willing to take them, provided they are willing to work. The pay will begin at eighteen shillings a week, but I hope they will soon make their value felt, and command a better position. They are young yet."

"What shall we have to do?" asked Horace.

"That I cannot exactly say," said the lawyer; "but I believe the manager would expect you to learn the printer's business from the beginning."

"What would the hours be?" asked Mrs Cruden.

"Well, as it is an evening paper, there will fortunately be no late night work. I believe seven in the morning to eight at night were the hours the manager mentioned."

"And--and," faltered the poor mother, who was beginning to realise the boys' lot better than they did themselves--"and what sort of companions are they likely to have, Mr Richmond?"

"I believe the manager is succeeding in getting respectable men as workmen. I hope so."

"Workmen!" exclaimed Reginald, suddenly. "Do you mean we are to be workmen, Mr Richmond? Just like any fellows in the street. Couldn't you find anything better than that for us?"

"My dear Master Cruden, I am very sorry for you, and would gladly see you in a better position. But it is not a case where we can choose.

This opening has offered itself. Of course, you are not bound to accept it, but my advice is, take what you can get in these hard times."

"Oh, of course, we're paupers, I--forgot," said Reg, bitterly, "and beggars mayn't be choosers. Anything you like, mother," added he, meeting Mrs Cruden's sorrowful look with forced gaiety. "I'll sweep a crossing if you like, Mr Richmond, or black your office-boy's boots,-- anything to get a living."

Poor boy! He broke down before he could finish the sentence, and his flourish ended in something very like a sob.

Horace was hardly less miserable, but he said less. Evidently, as Reg himself had said, beggars could not be choosers, and when presently Mr Richmond left, and the little family talked the matter over late into the afternoon, it was finally decided that the offer of the manager of the _Rocket_ Newspaper Company, Limited, should be accepted, and that the boys should make their new start in life on the Monday morning following.

CHAPTER FOUR.

THE "ROCKET" NEWSPAPER COMPANY, LIMITED.

The reader may imagine that the walk our two heroes took Citywards that Monday morning was not a very cheerful one. It seemed like walking out of one life into another. Behind, like a dream, were the joyous, merry days spent at Garden Vale and Wilderham, with no care for the future, and no want for the present. Before them, still more like a dream, lay the prospect of their new work, with all its anxiety, and drudgery, and weariness, and the miserable eighteen shillings a week it promised them; and, equally wretched at the present moment, there was the vision of their desolate mother, alone in the Dull Street lodgings, where they had just left her, unable at the last to hide the misery with which she saw her two boys start out into the pitiless world.

The boys walked for some time in silence; then Horace said,--

"Old man, I hope, whatever they do, they'll let us be together at this place."

"We needn't expect any such luck," said Reginald. "It wouldn't be half so bad if they would."

"You know," said Horace, "I can't help hoping they'll take us as clerks, at least. They must know we're educated, and more fit for that sort of work than--"

"Than doing common labourer's work," said Reg. "Rather! If they'd put us to some of the literary work, you know, Horace--editing, or correcting, or reporting, or that sort of thing, I could stand that.

There are plenty of swells who began like that. I'm pretty well up in cla.s.sics, you know, and--well, they might be rather glad to have some one who was."

Horace sighed.

"Richmond spoke as if we were to be taken on as ordinary workmen."

"Oh, Richmond's an a.s.s," said Reg, full of his new idea; "he knows nothing about it. I tell you, Horace, they wouldn't be such idiots as to waste our education when they could make use of it. Richmond only knows the manager, but the editor is the chief man, after all."

By this time they had reached Fleet Street, and their attention was absorbed in finding the by-street in which was situated the scene of their coming labours. They found it at last, and with beating hearts saw before them a building surmounted by a board, bearing in characters of gold the legend, _Rocket_ Newspaper Company, Limited.

The boys stood a moment outside, and the courage which had been slowly rising during the walk evaporated in an instant. Ugly and grimy as the building was, it seemed to them like some fairy castle before which they shrank into insignificance. A board inscribed, "Work-people's Entrance," with a hand on it pointing to a narrow side court, confronted them, and mechanically they turned that way. Reginald did for a moment hesitate as he pa.s.sed the editor's door, but it was no use. The two boys turned slowly into the court, where, amid the din of machinery, and a stifling smell of ink and rollers, they found the narrow pa.s.sage which conducted them to their destination.

A man at a desk half way down the pa.s.sage intercepted their progress.

"Now, then, young fellows, what is it?"

"We want to see the manager, please," said Horace.

"No use to-day, my lad. No boys wanted; we're full up."