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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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291 then?’ Nicholas related how he had been forced up by the deputation. ‘That was the way, was it?’ said Mr Gregsbury. ‘Sit down.’ Nicholas took a chair, and Mr Gregsbury stared at him for a long time, as if to make certain, before he asked any further questions, that there were no objections to his outward appearance. ‘You want to be my secretary, do you?’ he said at length. ‘I wish to be employed in that capacity, sir,’ replied Nicholas. ‘Well,’ said Mr Gregsbury; ‘now what can you do?’ ‘I suppose,’ replied Nicholas, smiling, ‘that I can do what usually falls to the lot of other secretaries.’ ‘What’s that?’ inquired Mr Gregsbury. ‘What is it?’ replied Nicholas. ‘Ah! What is it?’ retorted the member, looking shrewdly at him, with his head on one side. ‘A secretary’s duties are rather difficult to define, perhaps,’ said Nicholas, considering. ‘They include, I presume, correspondence?’ ‘Good,’ interposed Mr Gregsbury. ‘The arrangement of papers and documents?’ ‘Very good.’ ‘Occasionally, perhaps, the writing from your dictation; and possibly, sir,’ said Nicholas, with a half-smile, ‘the copying of your speech for some public journal, when you have made one of more than usual importance.’ ‘Certainly,’ rejoined Mr Gregsbury. ‘What else?’ ‘Really,’ said Nicholas, after a moment’s reflection, ‘I am not able, at this instant, to recapitulate any other duty of a secretary, beyond the general one of making himself as agreeable and useful |
