"That's good." Owen spoke formally, and Toni decided instantly that she
liked Mr. Raymond the better of the two. "Well, I have here an article I
want you to type at once, and then--can you read proof?"
Blushing, she owned her inability to do so. Privately, she was not at
all sure what he meant, but dread of Miss Hardy's wrath should she be
returned to the office marked "Incompetent" forced her to add quickly:--
"But I'm sure I could learn if--if you wouldn't mind showing me how to
do it."
"I'm sure you could." Barry spoke kindly and she turned to him with a
feeling of relief. "When you have typed that article for Mr. Rose I'll
show you how, and then you'll manage all right."
"Teach her now," advised Rose, looking up from the manuscript he was
scanning. "This stuff wants a bit of revising, and you might as well do
something for your living, Barry, you lazy wretch."
Barry smilingly disclaimed any right to the title.
"I'm ready to work as hard as anyone," he said gaily.
"But as I'm only considered fit to do the theatrical criticisms and play
office-boy to you, Owen, naturally I find time to make holiday now and
then. Well, Miss ... er ..."
"Gibbs." She supplied him with the name as he hesitated.
"Gibbs? You won't mind being known as 'Our Miss Gibbs,' will you?" His
tone was free of all offence, and Toni smiled in response. "Now, here's
a chair for me, and if only our chief will hold his peace for half an
hour, I'll soon put you wise, as the Yankees say."
He sat down beside her, and pulling a couple of galley proof-sheets
towards him, began to initiate her into the mysteries of "reading." For
all his laughing manner he was an excellent teacher; and after twenty
minutes of his clear and lucid exposition the girl felt she was
beginning to grasp her lesson thoroughly. She proved, too, wonderfully
quick at detecting mistakes, and Barry, who had petitioned the heads of
the office they had selected not to send him any Council School product,
was pleased to find that her spelling was admirable, her grammar
passable, and her memory retentive.
As to the meaning which the article they were correcting conveyed to
her, Barry was a little doubtful.
It was a short summary, by a famous Catholic writer, of some of the
lesser-understood aspects of mysticism; and Barry suspected that a good
deal of it was Greek to her, though she did her best to answer him
intelligently when he questioned her, rather artfully, on the correct
reading of a somewhat involved sentence.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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