t be clean, well-behaved,
and make himself useful in house. Attend to boots, coals, windows,
etcetera. Good character indispensable."

I was almost grateful to feel that no one could give me a good character
by any stretch of imagination, so that at any rate I was safe from this
fastidious professional gentleman. Then came another:

"News-boy wanted. Must have good voice. Apply Clerk, Great Central
Railway Station."

Even this did not tempt me. It might be a noble sphere of life to
strive to make my voice heard above a dozen shrieking engines all day
long, but I didn't quite fancy the idea.

In fact, as I read on and on, I became more and more convinced that my
splendid talents would be simply wasted in London. Nothing my uncle had
marked tempted me. A "muffin boy's" work might be pleasant for a week,
till the noise of the bell had lost its novelty; a "boy to learn the art
of making button-holes in braces" might perhaps be a promising opening;
and a printer's boy might be all very well, but they none of them
accorded with my own ideas, still less with my opinion of my own value.

I was getting rather hopeless, and wondering what on earth I should say
to my uncle, when the brilliant idea occurred to me of looking at some
of the other advertisements which my uncle hadn't marked. Some of these
were most tempting.

"A junior partner wanted in an old-established firm whose profits are
L10,000 a year. Must bring L15,000 capital into the concern."

There! If I only had L15,000, my fortune would be made at once!

"Wanted a companion for a nobleman's son about to travel abroad."

There again, why shouldn't I try for that? What could a nobleman's son
require more in a companion than was to be found in me?

And so I travelled on, beginning at the top of the ladder and sliding
gently down, gradually losing not only the hope of finding a situation
to suit me, but also relinquishing my previous strong faith in my own
wonderful merits. I was ready to give it up as a bad job, and go and
tell my uncle I must decline all his kind suggestions, when, in an
obscure corner of one paper, my eye caught the following:

"Junior clerkship. An intelligent lad, respectable, and quick at
figures, wanted in a merchant's office. Wages 8 shillings a week to
commence. Apply by letter to Merrett, Barnacle, and Company, Hawk
Street, London."

I jumped up as if I had been shot, and rushed headlong with the paper to
my uncle's