"I wish your message had been verbal, boy. It's so difficult to read ladies' hands; they're so abominably angular, and--where _are_ my specs? I've a mind to have 'em screw-nailed to my nose. Ah! here they are." He found them under a jack-plane and a mass of shavings; put them on and read the note, while Willie took the opportunity of observing that Mr Tippet's room was a drawing-room, parlour, dining-room, workshop, and old curiosity-shop, all in one. A half-open door revealed the fact that an inner chamber contained Mr Tippet's bed, and an indescribable mass of machinery and models in every stage of progression, and covered with dust, more or less thick in exact proportion to their respective ages. A dog and cat lay side by side on the hearth asleep, and a small fire burned in a grate, on the sides of which stood a variety of crucibles and such-like articles and a glue-pot; also a tea-pot and kettle. "You want a situation in my office as a clerk?" inquired Mr Tippet, tearing up his sister's letter, and throwing it into the fire. "If you please, sir," said Willie. "Ha! are you good at writing and ciphering?" "Middlin', sir." "Hum! D'you know where my office is, and what it is?" "No, sir." "What would you say now," asked Mr Tippet, seating himself on his bench, or rather on the top of a number of gimblets and chisels and files and pincers that lay on it; "what would you say now to sitting from morning till night in a dusty ware-room, where the light is so feeble that it can scarcely penetrate the dirt that encrusts the windows, writing in books that are so greasy that the ink can hardly be got to mark the paper? How would you like that, William Willders--eh?" "I don't know, sir," replied Willie, with a somewhat depressed look. "Of course you don't, yet that is the sort of place you'd have to work in, boy, if I engaged you, for that is a correct description of my warehouse. I'm a sleeping partner in the firm. D'ye know what that is, boy?" "No, sir." "Well, it's a partner that does no work; but I'm wide-awake for all that, an' have a pretty good notion of what is going on there. Now, lad, if I were to take you in, what would you say to 5 pounds a year?" "It don't sound much, sir," said Willie bluntly, "but if you take me in with the understandin' that I'm to work my way up'ards, I don't mind about the pay at first." "Good," said Mr Tippet, with a nod of approval. "What d'ye think of my workshop?" he added, looking round with a cherubic smile. "It's a funny place," responded Willie, with a grin.