55846    '"Is to copy out the Encyclopaedia Britannica.

55847    There is the first volume of it in that press.

55848    You must find your own ink, pens, and blotting-paper, but we provide this table and chair.

55849    Will you be ready tomorrow?"

55850    '"Certainly," I answered.

55851    '"Then, good-bye, Mr. Jabez Wilson, and let me congratulate you once more on the important position which you have been fortunate enough to gain."

55852    He bowed me out of the room, and I went home with my assistant, hardly knowing what to say or do, I was so pleased at my own good fortune.

55853    'Well, I thought over the matter all day, and by evening I was in low spirits again; for I had quite persuaded myself that the whole affair must be some great hoax or fraud, though what its object might be I could not imagine.

55854    It seemed altogether past belief that anyone could make such a will, or that they would pay such a sum for doing anything so simple as copying out the Encyclopædia Britannica.

55855    Vincent Spaulding did what he could to cheer me up, but by bedtime I had reasoned myself out of the whole thing.

55856    However, in the morning I determined to have a look at it anyhow, so I bought a penny bottle of ink, and with a quill pen, and seven sheets of foolscap paper, I started off for Pope's Court.

55857    'Well, to my surprise and delight everything was as right as possible.

55858    The table was set out ready for me, and Mr. Duncan Ross was there to see that I got fairly to work.

55859    He started me off upon the letter A, and then he left me; but he would drop in from time to time to see that all was right with me.

55860    At two o'clock he bade me good day, complimented me upon the amount that I had written, and locked the door of the office after me.