A few days later Philip went to London. The curate had recommended rooms
in Barnes, and these Philip engaged by letter at fourteen shillings a
week. He reached them in the evening; and the landlady, a funny little old
woman with a shrivelled body and a deeply wrinkled face, had prepared high
tea for him. Most of the sitting-room was taken up by the sideboard and a
square table; against one wall was a sofa covered with horsehair, and by
the fireplace an arm-chair to match: there was a white antimacassar over
the back of it, and on the seat, because the springs were broken, a hard
cushion.
After having his tea he unpacked and arranged his books, then he sat down
and tried to read; but he was depressed. The silence in the street made
him slightly uncomfortable, and he felt very much alone.
Next day he got up early. He put on his tail-coat and the tall hat which
he had worn at school; but it was very shabby, and he made up his mind to
stop at the Stores on his way to the office and buy a new one. When he had
done this he found himself in plenty of time and so walked along the
Strand. The office of Messrs. Herbert Carter & Co. was in a little street
off Chancery Lane, and he had to ask his way two or three times. He felt
that people were staring at him a great deal, and once he took off his hat
to see whether by chance the label had been left on. When he arrived he
knocked at the door; but no one answered, and looking at his watch he
found it was barely half past nine; he supposed he was too early. He went
away and ten minutes later returned to find an office-boy, with a long
nose, pimply face, and a Scotch accent, opening the door. Philip asked for
Mr. Herbert Carter. He had not come yet.
"When will he be here?"
"Between ten and half past."
"I'd better wait," said Philip.
"What are you wanting?" asked the office-boy.
Philip was nervous, but tried to hide the fact by a jocose manner.
"Well, I'm going to work here if you have no objection."
"Oh, you're the new articled clerk? You'd better come in. Mr.
Goodworthy'll be here in a while."
Philip walked in, and as he did so saw the office-boy--he was about the
same age as Philip and called himself a junior clerk--look at his foot. He
flushed and, sitting down, hid it behind the other. He looked round the
room. It was dark and very dingy. It was lit by a skylight. There were
three rows of desks in it and against them high stools. Over the
chimney-piece was a dirty engraving of a prize-fight. Presently a clerk
came in and then another; they glanced at Philip and in an undertone asked
the office-boy (Philip found his name was Macdougal) who he was. A whistle
blew, and Macdougal got up.
"Mr. Goodworthy's come. He's the managing clerk. Shall I tell him you're
here?"
"Yes, please," said Philip.
The office-boy went out and in a moment returned.
"Will you come this way?"
Philip followed him across the passage and was shown into a room, small
and barely furnished, in which a little, thin man was standing with his
back to the fireplace. He was much below the middle height, but his large
head, which seemed to hang loosely on his body, gave him an odd
ungainliness. His features were wide and flattened, and he had prominent,
pale eyes; his thin hair was sandy; he wore whiskers that grew unevenly on
his face, and in places where you would have expected the hair to grow
thickly there was no hair at all. His skin was pasty and yellow. He held
out his hand to Philip, and when he smiled showed badly decayed teeth. He
spoke with a patronising and at the same time a timid air, as though he
sought to assume an importance which he did not feel. He said he hoped
Philip would like the work; there was a good deal of drudgery about it,
but when you got used to it, it was interesting; and one made money, that
was the chief thing, wasn't it? He laughed with his odd mixture of
superiority and shyness.
"Mr. Carter will be here presently," he said. "He's a little late on
Monday mornings sometimes. I'll call you when he comes. In the meantime I
must give you something to do. Do you know anything about book-keeping or
accounts?"
"I'm afraid not," answered Philip.
"I didn't suppose you would. They don't teach you things at school that
are much use in business, I'm afraid." He considered for a moment. "I
think I can find you something to do."
He went into the next room and after a little while came out with a large
cardboard box. It contained a vast number of letters in great disorder,
and he told Philip to sort them out and arrange them alphabetically
according to the names of the writers.
"I'll take you to the room in which the articled clerk generally sits.
There's a very nice fellow in it. His name is Watson. He's a son of
Watson, Crag, and Thompson--you know--the brewers. He's spending a year
with us to learn business."
Mr. Goodworthy led Philip through the dingy office, where now six or eight
clerks were working, into a narrow room behind. It had been made into a
separate apartment by a glass partition, and here they found Watson
sitting back in a chair, reading The Sportsman. He was a large, stout
young man, elegantly dressed, and he looked up as Mr. Goodworthy entered.
He asserted his position by calling the managing clerk Goodworthy. The
managing clerk objected to the familiarity, and pointedly called him Mr.
Watson, but Watson, instead of seeing that it was a rebuke, accepted the
title as a tribute to his gentlemanliness.
"I see they've scratched Rigoletto," he said to Philip, as soon as they
were left alone.
"Have they?" said Philip, who knew nothing about horse-racing.
He looked with awe upon Watson's beautiful clothes. His tail-coat fitted
him perfectly, and there was a valuable pin artfully stuck in the middle
of an enormous tie. On the chimney-piece rested his tall hat; it was saucy
and bell-shaped and shiny. Philip felt himself very shabby. Watson began
to talk of hunting--it was such an infernal bore having to waste one's
time in an infernal office, he would only be able to hunt on
Saturdays--and shooting: he had ripping invitations all over the country
and of course he had to refuse them. It was infernal luck, but he wasn't
going to put up with it long; he was only in this internal hole for a
year, and then he was going into the business, and he would hunt four days
a week and get all the shooting there was.
"You've got five years of it, haven't you?" he said, waving his arm round
the tiny room.
"I suppose so," said Philip.
"I daresay I shall see something of you. Carter does our accounts, you
know."
Philip was somewhat overpowered by the young gentleman's condescension. At
Blackstable they had always looked upon brewing with civil contempt, the
Vicar made little jokes about the beerage, and it was a surprising
experience for Philip to discover that Watson was such an important and
magnificent fellow. He had been to Winchester and to Oxford, and his
conversation impressed the fact upon one with frequency. When he
discovered the details of Philip's education his manner became more
patronising still.
"Of course, if one doesn't go to a public school those sort of schools are
the next best thing, aren't they?"
Philip asked about the other men in the office.
"Oh, I don't bother about them much, you know," said Watson. "Carter's not
a bad sort. We have him to dine now and then. All the rest are awful
bounders."
Presently Watson applied himself to some work he had in hand, and Philip
set about sorting his letters. Then Mr. Goodworthy came in to say that Mr.
Carter had arrived. He took Philip into a large room next door to his own.
There was a big desk in it, and a couple of big arm-chairs; a Turkey
carpet adorned the floor, and the walls were decorated with sporting
prints. Mr. Carter was sitting at the desk and got up to shake hands with
Philip. He was dressed in a long frock coat. He looked like a military
man; his moustache was waxed, his gray hair was short and neat, he held
himself upright, he talked in a breezy way, he lived at Enfield. He was
very keen on games and the good of the country. He was an officer in the
Hertfordshire Yeomanry and chairman of the Conservative Association. When
he was told that a local magnate had said no one would take him for a City
man, he felt that he had not lived in vain. He talked to Philip in a
pleasant, off-hand fashion. Mr. Goodworthy would look after him. Watson
was a nice fellow, perfect gentleman, good sportsman--did Philip hunt?
Pity, THE sport for gentlemen. Didn't have much chance of hunting now,
had to leave that to his son. His son was at Cambridge, he'd sent him to
Rugby, fine school Rugby, nice class of boys there, in a couple of years
his son would be articled, that would be nice for Philip, he'd like his
son, thorough sportsman. He hoped Philip would get on well and like the
work, he mustn't miss his lectures, they were getting up the tone of the
profession, they wanted gentlemen in it. Well, well, Mr. Goodworthy was
there. If he wanted to know anything Mr. Goodworthy would tell him. What
was his handwriting like? Ah well, Mr. Goodworthy would see about that.
Philip was overwhelmed by so much gentlemanliness: in East Anglia they
knew who were gentlemen and who weren't, but the gentlemen didn't talk
about it.
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