THE GOOD BOY.

Te Aroha News, Volume VI, Issue 320, 28 November 1888, Page 6

THE GOOD BOY.

The following story is one of the traditions of a manufacturing fiim in Glasgow, Scotland. Thirty yeais ago a barefoot, ragged urchin presented himself before the desk of the principal partner and asked for work as errand boy. 1 There's a deal o' rinniner to be done,' said Mr Blank, jestingly, affecting a broad Scotch accent. • Your qualification would be a pair o' sboon.' The boy, with a grave nod, disappeared. He lived by doing odd jobs in the market, and slept under one of the stalls. Two months passed betore he had saved enough money to buy the shoes. Then he presented himself befoie Mr Blank one morning and held out a package. ' I hae the shoon, sir,' ho said, quietly. 'Oh,' Mr Blank with difficulty recalled the circumstance. 'Yen want a place? Not in those rags, my lad ; you would disgrace the house." The boy hesitated a moment, and went out without a word. Six months passed before he returned, decently clothed in coarse but ne\y garments. Mr Blank's intere&t was roused. For the first time lie looked at the boy attentively. His thin bloodless fact* showed that ho had stinted himself of food for, months in ordei to buy these clothes. <The manufacturer now questioned the boy c'osely, and found to his regret that the boy could neither read nor write. 'It is necessai'y that you should do both before we could employ you in carrying home packages,' he said. 'We have no place for you.' The lad 'p face grew paler, but without a word of complaint he disappeared. He now went fifteen miles into the country and found work in the stables near a night 'schdbl. " At the end of the year he again ' presented himself before Mr Blank. 'lean "read and write,' he said briefly. 'I gave him the place,' the employer said/ years afterwards, with the conviction 'that in process of time he would take mine if hje made up his mind to do it. Men rise slowly in Scotch business houses, but he is now our chief foreman.'

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