Who's to look after me if you don't ?" Like a brave man, Reginald, shy and reserved as he was, told him.
I need not repeat what was said that morning over the type cases.

It was not a sermon, nor a catechism; only a few stammering laboured words spoken by a boy who felt himself half a hypocrite as he said them, and who yet, for the affection he bore his friend, had the courage to go through with a task which cost him twenty times the effort of rescuing the boy yesterday from his bodily peril.
Little good, you will say, such a sermon from such a perverse, bad- humoured preacher as Reginald Cruden, could do! Very likely, reader; but, after all, who are you or I to say so?
Had any one told Reginald a week ago what would be taking place to-day, he would have coloured up indignantly and hoped he was not quite such a prig as all that.

As it was, when it was all over, it was with no self-satisfied smile or inward gratulation that he returned to his work, but rather with the nervous uncomfortable misgivings of one who says to himself,-- "After all I may have done more harm than good." By the end of a fortnight Reginald, greatly to Mr Durfy's dissatisfaction, was an accomplished compositor.

He could set-up almost as quickly as Gedge, and his "proofs" showed far fewer corrections.
Moreover, as he was punctual in his hours, and diligent at his work, it was extremely difficult for the overseer or any one else to find any pretext for abusing him.
It is true, Mr Barber, who had not yet given up the idea of asserting his moral and intellectual superiority, continued by the ingenious device of "squabbling" his case, and tampering with the screw of his composing-stick, and other such pleasing jokes not unknown to printers, to disconcert the new beginner on one or two occasions.

But ever since Reginald one morning, catching him in the act of mixing up his e's with his a's, had carried him by the collar of his coat and the belt of his breeches to the water tank and dipped his head therein three times with no interval for refreshment between, Mr Barber had moderated his attentions and become less exuberant in his humour.
With the exception of Gedge, now his fast ally, Reginald's other fellow- workmen concerned themselves very little with his proceedings.