So he talked on, and while he did so went to an iron chest that he unlocked, and thence drew out a parchment roll which he bade me take to my workroom and copy there.  I did so, and found that it was an inventory of his goods and estates, and oh! before I had done I wished that there were fewer of them.  All the long day I laboured, only stopping for a bite at noon, till my head swam and my fingers ached.  Yet as I did so I felt proud, for I guessed that my uncle had set me this task for two reasons:  first, to show his trust in me, and, secondly, to acquaint me with the state of his possessions, but as it were in the way of business.  By nightfall I had finished and checked the copy which with the original I hid in my robe when the green-robed waiting maid summoned me to eat.

At our meal my uncle asked me what I had seen that day and I replied—­naught but figures and crabbed writing—­and handed him the parchments which he compared item by item.

“I am pleased with you,” he said at last, “for heresofar I find but a single error and that is my fault, not yours; also you have done two days’ work in one.  Still, it is not fit that you who are accustomed to the open air should bend continually over deeds and inventories.  Therefore, to-morrow I shall have another task for you, for like yourself your horse needs exercise.”

And so he had, for with two stout servants riding with me and guiding me, he sent me out of London to view a fair estate of his upon the borders of the Thames and to visit his tenants there and make report of their husbandry, also of certain woods where he proposed to fell oak for shipbuilding.  This I did, for the servants made me known to the tenants, and got back at night-fall, able to tell him all which he was glad to learn, since it seemed that he had not seen this estate for five long years.

On another day he sent me to visit ships in which goods of his were being laden at the wharf, and on another took me with him to a sale of furs that came from the far north where I was told the snow never melts and there is always ice in the sea.

Also he made me known to merchants with whom he traded, and to his agents who were many, though for the most part secret, together with other goldsmiths who held moneys of his, and in a sense were partners, forming a kind of company so that they could find great sums in sudden need.  Lastly, his clerks and dependents were made to understand that if I gave an order it must be obeyed, though this did not happen until I had been with him for some time.

Thus it came about that within a year I knew all the threads of John Grimmer’s great business, and within two it drifted more and more into my hands.  The last part of it with which he made me acquainted was that of lending money to those in high places, and even to the State itself, but at length I was taught this also and came to know sundry of these men, who in private were humble borrowers, but if they met us in the street passed us with the nod that the great give to their inferiors.  Then my uncle would bow low, keeping his eyes fixed upon the ground and bid me do the same.  But when they were out of hearing he would chuckle and say,