I offer you nothing to jump at; for it will need sheer hard work and a lot of drudgery to overtake the arrears of work, and after that I doubt if the keeping up of the library will leave you much leisure.

You would incur no little responsibility either, for if I handed the care of the library to you, I should hold you responsible for every volume in it, and should expect you to know something of the inside of the books as well as the outside.
You may think a salary of L100 a year hardly adequate to this amount of work and responsibility; if so I must not press you further, for that is the sum I have arranged to give, and cannot see my way to offering more.
It would include residence here, and board, of course." Jeffreys felt almost dazzled by the prospect thus deprecatingly unfolded by Mr Rimbolt.

Had the offer been made in any less delicate way; had it savoured of charity to the outcast, or reward to the benefactor, he would have rejected it, however tempting.

As it was, it seemed like the opening of one of the gates of Providence before him.

The work promised was what of all others he coveted; the salary, with the casually-thrown in addition of board and lodging, seemed like affluence; his employer was a gentleman, and the opportunities of study and self-improvement were such as fall to the lot of few.