"I hope not," said Wallop. "I don't see what they want _one_ for."

"Oh, I do," said Crow (who I supposed had hitherto been the junior), "he'll be jolly useful, you know, running errands, and all that."

"All I can say is, unless he does it better than you, he'll be very little use."

"There you go," said Crow, in a sulk. "The more a fellow does for you the more you growl. You see if I get you any more cheap neckties. I'm always ashamed, as it is, to ask for ninepenny sailor's knots and one- and-twopenny kid gloves at the shop."

"Tell the truth--they're one-and-three. I suppose you get one-and- twopenny and pocket the odd penny!"

This pleasant recrimination might have proceeded I know not how long, greatly to the detriment of my task, had not some one at the other desk changed the subject.

"Don't you fret, you there," said he, "the junior's not for you at all.

He's for the imports. I told the governor we wanted a boy in our department last week."

"You did!" exclaimed Doubleday. "Why, I told him we couldn't possibly do without more help here in the exports a fortnight ago."

I don't know if any one saw my face when this glorious announcement was made. I could have danced on my desk for joy! Just suppose--suppose it should turn out that Jack Smith should be taken on in the export department and I in the import--or the other way round! I could hardly contain myself at the bare idea. Wouldn't I be glad! I would get Wallop one-and-fourpenny gloves and only charge him one-and-three for them, to signalise the joyous event. I would let myself out as a slave to the entire office, if only Jack Smith and I were both taken on! How was he getting on in the partners' room? I wondered. I hoped--

"I suppose you've done," said Doubleday, looking round at this point; "if so you can hook it."

"I haven't quite," said I, dashing back to my work.

I finished at last, and before Jack had come out of the inner-room too.

I handed my papers to Doubleday, who looked at them critically.

"Well," he said, "that's a pretty show. Have a look at this, Wallop, I say. Your youngest grandchild could make his sevens nearly as well as that!"

As Mr Wallop was about eighteen years old, I ventured to regard this language as figurative on the part of Mr Doubleday, and trusted the sevens were not quite as bad as he made out.

"All right," said Doubleday, "you can cut home to your mother-in-law.

You'll probably hear no more about it. There's millions of other loafers after the berth."

"When will I know?" I faltered.

"Let's see, this is the nineteenth century, ain't it? Call again about the year two thousand. February the thirty-first's the most convenient day for us, we're all at home then. Ta-ta."

I departed rather disconsolately, and waited half an hour outside in the street for Smith.

"Well," said I, when presently he appeared, "how did you get on?"

"Not very grand," said he. "I had to do some accounts like you. I heard one of the partners say yours were pretty good when the clerk brought them in."

"Really?" cried I, with pleasure I could hardly disguise. "But, I say, Jack, unless you get on too, it'll be an awful sell."

"We can't both get on," said Jack.

"I don't know," said I. And I related what I had overheard in the counting-house.

Smith brightened up at this. A very little encouragement was enough to set us building castles in the air. And we did build castles in the air that morning as we paced the crowded city streets.

By the time these architectural exercises were over it was time for me to go back to the station and catch my train; but not before I had tried to extract from Jack what he had been doing with himself since he was expelled from Stonebridge House.

As before, he was very uncommunicative. All I heard was that the reason he didn't get my letters at Packworth was that he had told me, or thought he had told me, to address my letters to "T," and I had always addressed them to "J." But even had I addressed them correctly, he would only have received the first, as a fortnight after he left Stonebridge he went to London, where he had hitherto been working as a grocer's shop-boy. You should have seen the look of disgust with which he referred to this part of his life! But now, having seen Merrett, Barnacle, and Company's advertis.e.m.e.nt, he was applying for their situation.

But in all his story he would tell me nothing about his home, or his relatives, so that as to knowing who my friend Smith was, or where he came from, I went back that afternoon to Brownstroke as much in the dark as ever. But I had found _him_!

CHAPTER ELEVEN.

HOW MY FRIEND SMITH AND I ENTERED ON NEW DUTIES IN NEW COMPANY.

The two days which followed my eventful expedition to London were among the most anxious I ever spent. Young and unsophisticated as I was, I knew quite enough of my own affairs to feel that a crisis in my life had been reached, and that a great deal, nay, everything, depended on how my application for Merrett, Barnacle, and Company's situation turned out.

If I succeeded there, I should have made a start in life--modest enough, truly, but a start all the same--and who was to say whether from the bottom of the ladder I might not some day and somehow get to the top?

But if I missed, I knew full well my uncle would take my affairs into his own hands, and probably put me to work which would be distasteful, and in which I should be miserable. So you see, reader, I had a good deal staked on my little venture.

The miserable thing was that I might never hear at all from the firm, but go on hoping against hope, day after day, in a suspense which would be worse than knowing straight off that I had failed. However, I kept up appearances before my uncle, for I didn't want him to think it was no use waiting a little before he took me in hand himself. I spent several hours a day working up my arithmetic, making out imaginary invoices against every imaginable person, and generally preparing myself for office work. And the rest of my time I spent in cogitation and speculation as to my future destiny, and the merits and demerits of those enviable mortals, Doubleday, Wallop, and Crow, of the Export Department of Messrs. Merrett, Barnacle, and Company.

On Tuesday morning two letters came for me with the London postmark, one in Jack Smith's well-remembered handwriting, the other with the awful initials, "M., B., and Company," on the seal.

I opened Smith's letter first. It was very short.

"Dear Fred,--I hear to-day I have got the situation. I'm afraid that means you have missed it. I'm awfully sorry, old boy, that's all I can say. I hope in any case you will come to London. I'll write again.

Ever yours,--Jack."

I flung down the letter in a whirl of mingled feelings. That Jack Smith had got the situation I could not help being glad. But that I had lost it was simply crushing. Although I had kept reminding myself all along in words that the chances were very remote, I yet discovered how I had at heart been reckoning on my success almost to a certainty. And now I was utterly floored.

All this was the first hurried impression caused on my mind by my friend Smith's letter; and for a minute I quite forgot, in my mortification, that I had in my hand another letter--a letter from Merrett, Barnacle, and Company themselves. Then suddenly remembering it, I called to mind also the vague rumour of two clerks being wanted in the office, and with new hope and wild anxiety I tore open the envelope.

Could I believe my eyes?

"Frederick Batchelor is informed that his application for junior clerkship is successful. He will be required to begin work on Monday next at 9 a.m."

For the s.p.a.ce of two minutes, reader, I knew not if I was standing on my head or my feet. I will pa.s.s over the excited day or two which followed. My uncle, of course, did what he could to check my glee. He said Merrett, Barnacle, and Company must be easily pleased, but they would soon find out their mistake, and that I might as well make up my mind to be dismissed after the first fortnight, and so on. I didn't take it much to heart; and after the first gush did not trouble my relative much with my prospects.

I was, however, a little curious to know what proposal he would make about my board and lodging in the great metropolis, which, after all, was a matter of some little consequence to me.

He did not see fit to relieve my anxiety on this point until the very eve of my departure from Brownstroke, when he said, abruptly, "You will be gone before I'm down to-morrow, Frederick. Don't forget the train starts at two minutes before six. I have arranged for you to lodge with Mrs Nash, whose address is on this card. There will be time to take your trunk round there before you go to your work. For the present I shall pay for your lodging."

"Shall I get my meals there?" I ventured to ask.

"Eh! You must arrange about that sort of thing yourself; and take my advice, and don't be extravagant."

As my salary was to be eight shillings a week, there wasn't much chance of my eating my head off, in addition to providing myself decently with the ordinary necessaries of life.

"I say I shall pay your lodging for the present, but before long I expect you to support yourself entirely. I cannot afford it, Frederick."