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Support the Monkey! Tell All your Friends and Teachers |
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Support the Monkey! Tell All your Friends and Teachers |
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669 desk, and with a smile upon his face--actually a smile--there was no mistake about it; Mr Linkinwater often mentioned it afterwards--Nicholas dipped his pen into the inkstand before him, and plunged into the books of Cheeryble Brothers! Tim Linkinwater turned pale, and tilting up his stool on the two legs nearest Nicholas, looked over his shoulder in breathless anxiety. Brother Charles and brother Ned entered the counting- house together; but Tim Linkinwater, without looking round, impatiently waved his hand as a caution that profound silence must be observed, and followed the nib of the inexperienced pen with strained and eager eyes. The brothers looked on with smiling faces, but Tim Linkinwater smiled not, nor moved for some minutes. At length, he drew a long slow breath, and still maintaining his position on the tilted stool, glanced at brother Charles, secretly pointed with the feather of his pen towards Nicholas, and nodded his head in a grave and resolute manner, plainly signifying ‘He’ll do.’ Brother Charles nodded again, and exchanged a laughing look with brother Ned; but, just then, Nicholas stopped to refer to some other page, and Tim Linkinwater, unable to contain his satisfaction any longer, descended from his stool, and caught him rapturously by the hand. ‘He has done it!’ said Tim, looking round at his employers and shaking his head triumphantly. ‘His capital B’s and D’s are exactly like mine; he dots all his small i’s and crosses every t as he writes it. There an’t such a young man as this in all London,’ said Tim, clapping Nicholas on the back; ‘not one. Don’t tell me! The city can’t produce his equal. I challenge the city to do it!’ With this casting down of his gauntlet, Tim Linkinwater struck |
