"If you please, sir"--
"Well, Teddy?"
"I should like to send a letter to Mr. Burroughs."
"Do you mean a letter from yourself?"
"Yes, sir."
A slight smile crossed Mr. Barlow's face, as he replied a little
sneeringly,--
"I am afraid your business will have to wait till Mr. Burroughs's
return, my boy."
"Don't you be sending him letters, sir?"
"I have; but, when I heard from him yesterday, he was about leaving
Cincinnati, and gave me no further address. He will be at home in a
day or two."
Mr. Barlow passed on, and Teddy stooped over his work, but to so
little purpose, that, on submitting it for inspection, he received a
sharp reproof for his negligence, and an order to do the whole
afresh.
"What a Quixotism of Burroughs's to try to educate this stupid
fellow!" muttered Mr. Barlow to a friend who lounged beside his
table; and Teddy, hearing the criticism upon his patron, felt an
added weight fall upon his own conscience.
"They laugh at him because I'm stupid, and I'm stupid because I'm
thinking of what I've done. It's good that they'll soon be shut of
me altogether. Maybe I can sweep the crossings, or clean the
gutters," thought poor miserable Teddy, bending afresh to his task.
Mr. Burroughs did not come so soon as expected; and Mr.
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