From the Angle of Seventeen

by Eden Phillpotts

So I returned to Aunt Augusta’s flat, and told her all about the wonders of the evening; and she was pleased and said that she hoped Mr. Benyon Pepys would some day ask me again. But no such thing happened. And, of course, there was no reason why it should. Probably they did hear what I said about the diary, but were too highly born and refined to take any notice.

III

The great first day at the Apollo Fire Office soon came, and my Aunt Augusta seemed to be quite moved as, having discussed two poached eggs, a roll, butter, toast, and marmalade, and two cups of coffee, I went forth in my top-hat and tail-coat to earn my living. Women are rum. She’d worked like anything to get me this great appointment, and yet, when I started off in the best possible style to begin, Aunt Augusta seemed distinctly sniffy! I took an omnibus from Oxford Street, having previously walked down Harley Street, which is a great haunt of the medical profession. Merely to walk down it and read the names is a solemn thing to do, and makes you thank God for being pretty well.

In due course I arrived at my destination, in Threadneedle Street in the very heart of the City of London. First you come to the Bank of England—an imposing edifice quite black with centuries of London fog—and opposite this is the Royal Exchange, whose weather-vane is a grasshopper covered with gold and of enormous size. Often and often, from the Country Department of the Apollo I used to look up at it and long to be in the green places where real grasshoppers occur so freely.

But, to return, I walked into the Apollo, which comes next to the Bank of England, and found there was a book on the first floor of the office, in which every member of the staff had to sign his name on arriving. When the hour of ten struck, a clerk came forward, dipped his pen into the red ink, picked up a ruler and drew a line across the page. This was to separate the clerks who were in time from those who were late. If you were under the red line more than once or twice in a month, you heard about it unfavourably.

There was an amazing record of a wonderful old clerk who had worked in the office for forty-five years and never once been under the line! But at last there came a day when the hour of ten rang out and the old clerk had not come. Everybody was very excited over it, and they actually gave him ten minutes’ grace, which was not lawful, but a sporting and a proper thing to do in my opinion. However, all was without avail; for he did not come, and the red line had to be reluctantly drawn. Everybody almost trembled to know what the old clerk would do when he arrived to find the record of forty-five years was ended; but the old clerk never did arrive, because a telegram came, a few minutes after the drawing of the line, to say that he had died in his sleep at his wife’s side, and therefore could not get up at six o’clock, which was his rule. It was rather sad in a way.

To show, however, that everybody didn’t feel the same rare spirit of punctuality as the old clerk, there was another interesting story of the red line and a chap who arrived late on his very first day. He actually began his official career under the red line. He must have been a man like the great Napoleon in some ways. A very self-willed sort of man, in fact. He only stopped in the Apollo a fortnight, and then was invited to seek another sphere of activity. He was a nephew of one of the Directors and died in the Zulu War. A pity for him he had not been of a clerk-like turn of mind.

I signed the book in full:

“Norman Bryan Corkey.”

and then a messenger, who wore a blue tail-coat with a glittering disc of silver on his breast, showed me up to the Country Department. It was at the very top of the edifice—a long room with desks arranged in such a way that the light from the stately windows should fall upon them. About thirty-five men of all ages pursued their avocation of making policies in this great room. The Chief had an apartment leading out of this, and usually he sat in great seclusion, pondering over the affairs of the Department. He was a big and a stout man, with a florid face and a beard and mustache of brown hair. His eyes were grey and penetrating. They roamed over the Department sometimes, when he came to the door of his own room; and he saw instantly everything that was going on and noted it down, in a capacious memory, for future use. Everybody liked him, for he was a kind and a good and a patient man, and his ability must have been very great to have reached such a high position; for he was much younger than many other men who were under him. He welcomed me with friendliness and hoped I should settle down and soon take to the work.