The version of the Uniform Boundedness Principle that I know goes like this: Let $E$ be a Banach space and $F$ a normed space, with $I$ an indexing set (e.g. $\mathbb{N}$) and $\{T_\alpha : \alpha \in I\}$ a subset of $\mathscr{B}(E, F)$ such that for any given $x \in E$, there is some $C_x \geq 0$ such that $||T_\alpha (x)||\leq C_x$ for all $\alpha \in I$. Then, according to the principle, the set $\{||T_\alpha ||: \alpha \in I\}$ is bounded.
That seems fine, but I'm not sure how to apply it to this problem about $\ell ^p$ and $\ell ^q$ spaces. Suppose we have $p\in (0, \infty)$ and $q$ such that $\frac{1}{p} + \frac{1}{q} = 1$. And let $a=(a_k)_{k=1}^\infty$ be a real sequence such that for every $x=(x_k)_{k=1}^\infty \in \ell ^p$, $\sum_{k=1}^\infty a_k x_k < \infty$.
How can I use the principle to show that $a \in \ell^q$? I've made the following start: Fix $x \in \ell^p$ and let $$\phi_n (x) = \displaystyle\sum_{k=1}^n a_k x_k.$$ Then since $\sum_{k=1}^\infty a_k x_k < \infty$, call the sum $C$, $C$ is a uniform bound on the $|\phi_n(x)|$, and so by the principle, there is some $M\geq 0$ with $||\phi_n|| \leq M$ for all $n\in \mathbb{N}$. To show that $a \in \ell^q$, though, we need $\sum_{k=1}^\infty |a_k|^q$ to exist, and I'm stuck trying to find some $x\in\ell^p$ such that $||x||_p = 1$ and $\phi_n(x)=\sum_{k=1}^n |a_k|^q$, which would give us what we want. Tips would be helpful.