Up and down Rutland Street had Walter Joyce paced full a thousand times since his arrival in London. The name of the street and of its principal inhabitants was familiar to him through the advertisements in the clerical newspaper which used to be sent to Mr. Ashurst at Helmingham; and no sooner was he settled down in his little lodging in Winchester Street than he crossed the mighty artery of the Strand, and sought out the street and the shops of which he had already heard so much. He saw them, peered in at Copes', and at Tubelkahn's, and looked earnestly at Camoxons' ground-glass window, and half thought of going in to see whether they had anything which might suit him on their books. But he refrained until he had received the answers to a certain advertisement which he had inserted in the newspaper, setting forth that a young man with excellent testimonials--he knew he could get them from the rector of Helmingham--was desirous of giving instruction in the classics and mathematics. Advertising, he thought, was a better and more gentlemanly medium than causing a detailed list of his accomplishments to be inscribed in the books of the Ecclesiastical Registry, as a horse's pedigree and performances are entered in the horsedealer's list; but when, after hunting for half an hour through the columns of the newspaper's supplement, he found his advertisement amongst a score of others, all of them from men with college honours, or promising greater advantages than he could hold forth, he began to doubt the wisdom of his proceeding. However, he would wait and see the result. He did so wait for three days, but not a single line addressed, as requested, to W.J. found its way to Winchester Street. Then he sent for the newspaper again, and began to reply to the advertisements which he thought might suit him. He had no high thoughts or hopes, no notions of regenerating the living generation, or of placing tuition on a new footing, or rendering it easy by some hitherto unexplained process. He had been an usher in a school; for the place of an usher in a school he had advertised; and if he could have obtained that position he would have been contented. But when the few answers to his advertisement arrived, he saw that it was impossible to accept any of the offers they contained. One man wanted him to teach French with a guaranteed Parisian accent, to devote his whole time out of school-hours to the boys, to supervise them in the Indian-sceptre athletic exercises, and to rule over a dormitory of thirteen, "where, in consequence of the lax supervision of the last didaskolos, severe measures would be required," for twenty pounds a year. Another gentleman, whose notepaper was ornamented with a highly florid Maltese cross, and who dated his letter "Eve of S. Boanerges," wished to know his opinion of the impostor-firebrand M. Luther, and whether he (the advertiser) had any connections in the florist or decorative line, with whom an arrangement in the mutual-accommodation way could be entered into; while a third, evidently a grave sententious man, with a keen eye to business, expressed, on old-fashioned Bath-post, gilt-edged letter-paper, his desire to know "what sum W.J. would be willing to contribute for the permission to state, after a year's residence, that he had been one of Dr. Sumph's most trusted helpmates and assistants."
No good to be got that way, then, and a visit to Camoxons' imminent, for the money was running very, very short, and the conventional upturning of stones, by no means leaving one in its normal position, must be proceeded with. Visit to Camoxon's paid, after much staring through the ground-glass window (opaque generally, but transparent in the Bible and Sceptre artistic bits), much ascent and descent of two steps cogitatively, final rush up top step wildly, and hurried, not to say pantomimic, entrance through the ground-glass door, to be confronted by the oldest and most composed of the sable-clad clerks. Bows exchanged; name and address required; name and address given in a low and serious whisper, and repeated aloud in a clear high treble, each word as it was uttered being transcribed in a hand which was the very essence of copperplate into an enormous book. Position required? Second or third mastership in a classical school, private tutorship, as secretary or librarian to a nobleman or gentleman. So glibly ran the old gentleman's steel pen over these items that Walter Joyce began to fancy that applicants for one post were generally ready and willing to take all or any, as indeed they were. "Which University, what college?" The old gentleman scratched his head with the end of his steel penholder, and looked across at Walter, with a benevolent expression which seemed to convey that he would rather the young man would say Christchurch than St. Mary's, and Trinity in preference to Clare Hall. Walter Joyce grew hot to his ear-tips, and his tongue felt too large for his mouth, as he stammered out, "I have not been to either University--I----" but the remainder of the sentence was lost in the loud bang with which the old gentleman clapped-to the heavy sides of the big book, clasped it with its brazen clasp, and hoisted it on to a shelf behind him with the dexterity of a juggler.
"My good young friend," said the old clerk blandly, "you might have saved yourself a vast amount of vexation, and me a certain amount of trouble, if you had made that announcement earlier! Good morning!"
"But do you mean to say----"
"I mean to say that in that book at the present moment are the names of sixty gentlemen seeking just the employment which you have named, all of whom are not merely members of colleges, but members who have taken rank--prizemen, first-class men, wranglers, senior optimes; they are on our books, and they may remain there for months before we get them off. You may judge, then, what chance you would have. At most agencies they would have taken your money and given you hope. But we don't do that here--it isn't our way. Good morning!"
"Then you think I have no chance----"
"I'm sure of it--through us, at least. Good morning!"
Joyce would have made another effort, but the old gentleman had already turned on his heel, and feigned to be busy with some letters on a desk before him, so Walter turned round too, and silently left the registry-office.
Silently, and with an aching heart. The old clerk had said but little, but Walter felt that his dictum was correct, and that all hopes of getting a situation as a tutor were at an end. Oh, if his father had only left him money enough to go to college, he would have had a future before him which---- But then, Marian? He would never have known that pure, faithful, earnest love, failing which, life in its brightest and best form would have been dull and distasteful to him. He had that love still, thank Heaven, and in that thought there were the elements of hope, and the promptings to bestir himself yet once more in his hard, self-appointed task of bread-winning.
Money running very short, and time running rapidly on. Not the shortest step in advance since he had first set foot in London, and the bottom of his purse growing painfully visible. He had taken to frequenting a small coffee-house in the neighbourhood of Covent Garden, where, as he munched the roll and drank the tea which now too often served him as a dinner, he could read the newspapers, and scan the advertisements to see if there were anything likely to suit him among the myriad columns. It was a quiet and secluded little place, where but few strangers entered; he saw the same faces night after night, as he noticed--and where he could have his letters addressed to him under his initials, which was a great comfort, as he had noticed lately that his landlady in his riverside lodging-house had demurred to the receipt of so much initialed correspondence, ascribing it, as Walter afterwards learned from the "slavey," or maid-of-all-work, either to "castin' 'orryscopes, tellin' charickters by 'andwritin', or rejen'rative bolsum for the 'air!"--things utterly at variance with the respectability of her establishment.