avour. The mothers of
possible pupils, with whom the girl's credentials from the college
secured an interview, were scarcely civil to the handsome,
distinguished-looking girl; they were sure that such looks, seeking for
employment, boded ill for anyone indulgent enough to engage her. Mavis
could not understand such behaviour; she had read in books how people
were invariably kind and sympathetic, women particularly so, to girls
in want of work; surely she furnished opportunity for her own sex to
show consideration to one of the less fortunate of their kind.

Mavis next advertised in local papers for pupils to whom she would
teach music. Receiving no replies, she attempted to get employment in a
house of business; this effort resulted in her obtaining work as a
canvasser, remuneration being made by results. This meant tramping the
pavement in all weathers, going up and coming down countless flights of
stairs, swallowing all kinds of humiliating rebuffs in the effort to
sell some encyclopedia or somebody's set of novels, which no one
wanted. She always met with disappointment and, in time, became used to
it; but there were occasions when a purchaser seemed likely, when hope
would beat high, only to give place to sickening despair when her offer
was finally rejected. On the whole, she met with civility and
consideration from the young men (mostly clerks in offices) whom she
interviewed; but there was a type of person whose loud-voiced brutality
cut her to the quick. This was the West-end tradesman. She would walk
into a shop in Bond Street or thereabouts, when the proprietor, taking
her for a customer, would advance with cringing mien, wringing his
hands the while. No sooner did he learn that the girl wanted him to buy
something, than his manner immediately changed. Usually, in coarse and
brutal voice, he would order her from the shop; sometimes, if he were
in a facetious mood, and if he had the time to spare, he would make fun
of her and mock her before a crowd of grinning underlings. To this day,
the sight of a West-end tradesman fills Mavis with unspeakable
loathing; nothing would ever mitigate the horror which their treatment
of her inspired at this period of her life.

Then Mavis, in reply to one of her many answers to advertisements,
received a letter asking her to call at an office in Eastcheap, at a
certain time. Arrived there, she learned how she could earn a pound a
week by canvassing, together with commission, i