I had taken the first sheet out of the envelope: it was the expenses account written in a very neat script as though by a schoolboy. I said, ‘You write very clearly.’ ‘That’s my boy. I’m training him in the business.’ He added hastily, ‘I don’t put anything down for him, sir, unless I leave him in charge, like now.’ ‘He’s in charge, is he?’ ‘Only while I make my report, sir.’ ‘How old is he?’ ‘Gone twelve,’ he said as though his boy were a clock. ‘A youngster can be useful and costs nothing except a comic now and then. And nobody notices him. Boys are born lingerers.’
