"Alright! I'll stay out with you then, till it's light."
She laughed in real amusement. "I'm going to sleep," she answered.
He looked at her and saw she meant it; doubt again assailed him. "I suppose you're used to it?" he asked.
She laughed aloud. "I've never slept in a bed," she answered.
He laughed too. "I've never slept out of one," he said, "good-bye." He went back again and let himself into his diggings, and went to bed.
Next morning there were two letters waiting for him, both with the city arms of a municipality embossed on the flap of the envelope. "The mayor and corporation, or the City Electrical Engineer regret," he said to himself with a smile as he opened them. In the first, the city electrical engineer of a municipality in the north of England had to inform him that his application for the post of switchboard attendant at a salary of one pound per week had been successful, and would be pleased to know the earliest date on which he could take up his duties.
Carstairs read over the short, concisely worded document a second time. With a little thrill of pleasure he repeated the name of the town to himself. "That's a big job," he said, "and likely to grow." He opened the other letter. Another Borough Electrical Engineer in the Midlands had pleasure in offering him an appointment as switchboard attendant at a salary of one pound per week, and desired that he start as soon as possible.
He smiled over his lonely breakfast table, at the soup plateful of porridge, at the fried bacon and eggs, at the brown bread and the coffee-pot. It was the sort of smile one must share with somebody or something, or burst; for Jack Carstairs was nineteen. He ate his breakfast with much zest, but before it was over he got up and fished out directories and lists of Central Stations from a pile of books and papers in a cupboard; with these spread out on the table before him, or propped up against the sugar basin, he took intermittent mouthfuls of food while he carefully scanned the lists. Then having found both the towns and noted the capacity and peculiarity of their plant, the population, etc., he gave his whole attention to his plate, thinking deeply as he ate. "Not much to choose between them," he said to himself.
Then he went out for a walk and walked along, deep in thought. "I think," he said to himself, at the end of his stroll, "I think Muddleton (the town in the Midlands) will be the better experience."
He went down to the works to see his chief and find out if he could get away earlier than his legal agreement allowed him to. Then he went back to his digs and wrote accepting one and refusing the other.