40 Calamities of a Clerk. [Juty 
perhaps, convey no unlively idea of the multifarious nature of my daily 
engagements at that time, if I say that I positively cannot reckon up 
their number, in spite of the force of annoyance with which many of 
them severally impressed me. Among those which dwell most per- 
tinaciously in my remembrance, is the process of copying. It was part 
of my business to transcribe nearly all that of the house. Letters, in- 
voices, accounts current, accounts of sales, pro-formd statements, and 
many matters else, were all to be copied, and Jones (for I was familiarly 
distinguished by my surname) was alone expected to do them. I was 
thus, alternately, either a “‘ copying-machine” myself, or the animal that 
worked the machine. It should be observed also, that part of the cor- 
respondence to be copied (for our firm had an extensive foreign business 
as agents) consisted of illegible Dutch and German letters. Mr. Glad- 
win, the senior partner, wrote a hand past all understanding, but was not 
a whit the less astonished at the blunders in my conjectural transcrip- 
tions. He could not at all bring himself to imagine how so plain a thing 
as a letter of business could be mistaken. Then, as for the engagement 
of mind promoted by such a use of the pen, take the following as a 
sample :—“ Molasses are heavy ; but rums are looking up. In ashes, 
little has been done: pot are stationary, and pearl are of small value. 
Very considerable sales both of Irish and India pork are reported. In 
beef, some transactions have transpired, and bacon is much sought after. 
Butters are nominal.” The checking of calculations, as it was called, 
was another labour, that contributed materially to check my own growth. 
Every clerk in the office required his arithmetical processes to be gone 
into over again, and Jones was of course to work them out. Many a 
column of figures was my jaded eye obliged to ascend and descend half- 
a-dozen times, owing to my having made the amount greater by my own 
head-ache—and in many a subtraction did I fail, from being unable to 
take away from the operation the dizziness of my feelings. 
Such were, in part, my tribulations as an in-door clerk—but I was 
likewise at the same time an out-of-door one—because I was called 
neither. Among other perambulating pursuits of a like interest, I was 
invited to make myself the “ circulating medium” for distributing letters 
of routine among dealers and middle-men, and in general, all those mat- 
ters which might be called the “ unclaimed dividends” of employment, 
fell to my share. Was an errand to be run upon? Wasa broker to be 
gone after? Was the price given fora lot of indigo, or a parcel of 
tobacco to be got at? Was a circular to be distributed over the 
metropolis? Jones was in requisition, and Jones was expected to be 
always at hand. 
It happened to be the season of winter when I commenced my official 
martyrdom at Messrs. Gladwin and Co.’s, and my arrival there was 
marked by that of a cargo of Virginia tobacco in the London Docks, con- 
signed to their house. I was despatched accordingly to deliver the 
manifest, as it is termed, at the Excise Office and Custom House, and to 
check the weights of the several hogsheads taken at the king’s scales in 
the tobacco warehouse at the docks. In the performance of this latter 
duty, I had to stand, during every day of a tedious frosty week, from ten 
o’clock till four, on the benumbing stones, among an assemblage of black- 
guards, under the divers names of tide-surveyors, scale-men, foremen, 
and labourers, whose conversation was far too low and ribaldrous to be 
fitted for the ears of any youth decently brought up, and whose callous 
