"Got any one to speak for you?"
"A pair of eyes, a pair of hands, a fair wit, and a good will to work."
The fat baker looked amused. "And an honest repute, eh?" said he.
"I have it, but I can't give it you, except from my wife, and I scarcely suppose you'll be satisfied to go to her for my character."
"I'm not so sure of that!" laughed the baker. "If she'd speak truth, she could give you the character best worth having of any."
"She never yet spoke any thing else, nor did I."
"_Ha, jolife_!--you must be a fine pair. Well, now, speak the truth, and tell me why a decent, tidy-seeming young fellow like you can't get a character to give me."
"Because I should have to put my wife in peril, if I went back to do it," was the bold answer.
"Ha, so!" Such a possibility, in those rough days, was only too apparent to the honest baker. "Well, well! Had to run from a bad master, eh? Ay, ay, I see."
He did not see exactly the accurate details of the facts; but the applicant did not contradict him.
"Well! I could do with another hand, it's true; and I must say I like the look of you. How long have you been a baker's man?"
"When I've been with you seven days, it'll be just a week," was the humorous reply.
"What, you've all to learn? That's a poor lookout."
"A man that has all to learn, and has a will to it, will serve you better than one that has less to learn, and has no will to it."
"Come, I can't gainsay that. What have you been, then?"
"I have been watchman in a castle."
"Oh, ho!--how long?"
"Fifteen years."
"And what gives you a mind to be a baker?"
"Well, more notions than one. It's a clean trade, and of good repute; wholesome, for aught I know: there's no killing in it, for which I haven't a mind; and as folks must eat, it does not depend on fashion like some things. Moths don't get into bread and spoil it, nor rust neither; and if you can't sell it, you can eat it yourself, and you're no worse off, or not much. It dries and gets stale, of course, in time: but one can't have every thing; and seems to me there's as little risk in bread, and as little dirt or worry, as there is in any thing one can put one's hand to do. I'm not afraid of work, but I don't like dirt, loss, nor worry."
The fat baker chuckled. "Good for you, my lad!--couldn't have put it better myself. Man was made to labour, and I like to see a man that's not afraid of work. Keep clear of worry by all means; it eats a man's heart out, which honest work never does. Work away, and sing at your work--that's my notion: and it's the way to get on and be happy."
"I'm glad to hear it; I always do," said the applicant. "And mind you, lad,--I don't know an unhappier thing than discontent. When you want to measure your happiness, don't go and set your ell-wand against him that's got more than you have, but against him that's got less. Bread and content's a finer dinner any day than fat capon with grumble-sauce.
We can't all be alike; some are up, and some down: but it isn't them at the top of the tree that's got the softest bed to lie on, nor them that sup on the richest pasties that most enjoy their supper. If a man wants to be comfortable, he must keep his heart clear of envy, and put a good will into his work. I believe a man may come to take pleasure in any thing, even the veriest drudgery, that brings a good heart to it and does his best to turn it out well."
"I am sure of that," was the response, heartily given.
The baker was pleased with the hearty response to the neat epigrammatic apothegms wherein he delighted to unfold himself. He nodded approval.
"I'll take you on trial for a month," he said. "And if you've given yourself a true character, you'll stay longer. I'll pay you--No, we'll settle that question when I have seen how you work."
"I'll stay as long as I can," was the answer, as the young man turned to leave the shop.
"Tarry a whit! What's your name, and how old are you?"
"I am one-and-thirty years of age, and my name is Stephen."
"Good. Be here when the vesper bell begins to ring."
Stephen went up to Cheapside, turned along it, up Lady Cicely's Lane, and out into Smithfield by one of the small posterns in the City wall.
Entering a small house in Cock Lane, he went up a long ladder leading to a tiny chamber, screened-off from a garret. Here a tabby cat came to meet him, and rubbed itself against his legs as he stooped down to caress it, while Ermine, who sat on the solitary bench, looked up brightly to greet him.
"Any success, Stephen?"
"Thy prayer is heard, sweet heart. I have entered the service of a baker in Bread Street,--a good-humoured fellow who would take me at my own word. I told him I had no one to refer him to for a character but you,--I did not think of Gib, or I might have added him. You'd speak for me, wouldn't you, old tabby?"
Gib replied by an evidently affirmative "Me-ew!"
"I'll give you an excellent character," said Ermine, smiling, "and so will Gib, I am sure."
The baker was well satisfied when his new hand reached the Harp exactly as the vesper bell sounded its first stroke at Saint Mary-le-Bow.
"That's right!" said he. "I like to see a man punctual. Take this damp cloth and rub the shelves."
"Clean!" said he to himself a minute after. "Have you ever rubbed shelves before?"
"Not much," said Stephen.
"How much do you rub 'em?"
"Till they are clean."
"You'll do. Can you carry a tray on your head?"
"Don't know till I try."
"Best practise a bit, before you put any thing on it, or else we shall have mud pies," laughed the baker.
When work was over, the baker called Stephen to him.
"Now," said he, "let us settle about wages. I could not tell how much to offer you, till I saw how you worked. You've done very well for a new hand. I'll give you three-halfpence a-day till you've fairly learnt the trade, and twopence afterwards: maybe, in time, if I find you useful, I may raise you a halfpenny more: a penny of it in bread, the rest in money. Will that content you?"
"With a very good will," replied Stephen.
His wages as watchman at the Castle had been twopence per day, so that he was well satisfied with the baker's proposal.
"What work does your wife do?"
"She has none to do yet. She can cook, sew, weave, and spin."