The Argosy — page 44: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

The Ebony Box. 31 the people got tired of him, or he of them. Money (when he got any) burnt a hole in his pocket, and his coats grew shabby and his boots dirty. ‘‘ Poor Jamie Parslet ! how he has spoilt his life !” cried the town, shaking its pitying head at him: and thus things went on till he grew to be nearly thirty years of age. Then, to the public astonishment, Jamie pulled up. He got taken on by Lawyer Cockermuth as copying clerk at twenty shillings a week, married, and became as steady as Old Time. He had been nothing but steady from that day to this, had forty shillings a week now, instead of twenty, and was ever a meek, subdued man, as if he carried about with him a perpetual repentance for the past, regret for the life that might have been. He lived in Edgar Street, which is close to the cathedral, as everybody knows, Edgar Tower being at the top of it. An old gentleman attached to the cathedral had now lodged in his house for ten years, occupying the drawing-room floor; he had recently died, and hence Lawyer Cockermuth’s suggestion. Mr. Parslet looked up. ‘‘I should be happy to, sir,” he said ; ‘if our rooms suited Mr. Dene. Perhaps he would like to look at them ?” ‘““T will,” said Sam. “If my uncle and aunt do not fix on any for me.” Is there any subtle mesmeric power, I wonder, that influences things unconsciously ? Curious to say, at this very moment Mr. and Mrs. Jacobson were looking at these identical rooms. ‘They had driven into Worcester with Sam very early indeed, so as to have a long day before them, and when breakfast was over at the inn, took the oppor- tunity, which they very rarely got, of slipping into the cathedral to hear the beautiful ten o’clock service. Coming out the cloister way when it was over, and so down Edgar Street, Mrs. Jacobson espied a card in a window with ‘‘ Lodgings” on it. ‘I wonder if they would suit Sam?” she cried to her husband. ‘‘ Edgar Street is a nice, wide, open street, and quiet. Suppose we look at them?” A young servant-maid, called by her mistress “ Sally,” answered the knock. Mrs. Parslet, a capable, bustling woman of ready speech and good manners, came out of the parlour, and took the visitors to the floor above. ‘They liked the rooms and they liked Mrs Parslet ; they also liked the moderate rent asked, for respectable country people in those days did not live by shaving one another; and when it came out that the house’s master had been clerk to Lawyer Cockermuth for twenty years, they settled the matter off-hand, without the ceremony of consulting Sam. Mrs. Jacobson looked upon Sam as a boy still. Mr. Jacobson might have done the same but for the debts made in London. And all this, you will say, has been yet more explanation ; but I could not help it. The real thing begins now, with Sam Dene’s sojourn in Mr. Cockermuth’s office, and his residence in Edgar Street. ECOMICHOOOKS (CO) mn