"Will you? Then all I can say is that if I--I spoil many more I shall know that I'm not fit for the situation which you've been so kind as to offer me, and--I shall go." "Really you must not talk like that." He picked up one of the ominously numerous sheets of paper which lay at her side, all of which had plainly had at any rate some slight acquaintance with the machine. "Now this is not at all bad." "There are three errors in the first line." "Are there? So many as that?" "And five in the second." "Indeed! you don't say so!" "And the third line's wrong altogether." "That only shows that with a little practice you'll regain all your old facility." "I'm not sure that I ever had any facility; I can see that now; I'm afraid I only used to play at typing." "Then in that case you shall copy them by hand; I'm disposed to think that perhaps good clear writing is best after all." "Copy them by hand?" Suddenly a look came on her face which actually frightened him; his words had evidently been to her an occasion of serious offence. "I applied for your situation, Mr. Hooper, in the belief that I could work a typewriter; you gave it me on that understanding. If, now, it turns out that I cannot work a typewriter it would look as if I had applied for your situation under false pretences; do you suppose that I will continue to hold it knowing that to be the case, and that you are paying me for something which it turns out I cannot do? Either you shall have perfectly clean typewritten copies, Mr. Hooper, or I must resign; I will not go through the farce of pretending to occupy a position for which I have been proved to be unfit." He could have answered her many things, but he answered her nothing; he was afraid. Instead, he shuffled out of the room, excusing himself. "I've a most pressing appointment, Miss Lindsay." He was longing for a pipe; the appointment was to smoke, all by himself, in the Temple Gardens. "When I return I've no doubt you'll have advanced beyond your expectations. Rome wasn't built in a day; you must persevere, persevere!" In the office Mr. Hooper, placing his hand on King Solomon's shoulder, whispered in his ear, as if anxious not to be overheard, "Mr. Gibb, I am inclined to the opinion that having a divinity on the premises is not all lavender." To which Mr. Gibb replied, with a sigh, as if he himself was vaguely conscious of a feeling of being "cribbed, cabined and confined"-- "No, sir; that's what I was thinking."