t eleven was
the time?"

"I did; and it is now just half-past twelve! The post you were to have
had was filled half an hour ago by one of the other applicants."

I staggered back in astonishment and horror. Then _it_ flashed on me
that I had dawdled away an hour without knowing it, and with it the
finest opening I ever had in my life.

I must pass over the next two years, and come to the conclusion of my
story. During those two years I entered upon and left no less than
three employments--each less advantageous than the former. The end of
that time found me a clerk in a bank in a country town. In this
capacity my besetting sin was still haunting me. I had several times
been called into the manager's room, and reprimanded for unpunctuality,
or cautioned for wasting my time. The few friends who on my first
coming to the town had taken an interest in me had dropped away,
disgusted at my unreliable conduct, or because I myself had neglected
their acquaintance. My employers had ceased to entrust me with any
commissions requiring promptitude or care; and I was nothing more than
an office drudge--and a very unprofitable drudge too. Such was my
condition when, one morning, a telegram reached me from my mother to
say--"Father is very ill. Come at once."

I was shocked at this bad news, and determined to start for London by
the next train.

I obtained leave of absence, and hastened to my lodgings to pack up my
few necessaries for the journey. By the time I arrived there, the shock
of the telegram had in some way abated, and I was able to contemplate my
journey more calmly. I consulted a time-table, and found that there was
one train which, by hurrying, I could just catch in a quarter of an
hour, and that the next went in the afternoon.

By the time I had made up my mind which to take, and inquired where a
lad could be found who would carry down my portmanteau to the station,
it was too late to catch the first train, and I therefore had three
hours to spare before I could leave. This delay, in my anxious
condition, worried me, and I was at a loss how to occupy the interval.
If I had been wise, I should never have quitted that station till I did
so in the train. But, alas! I decided to take a stroll instead. It
was a sad walk, for my father's image was constantly before my eyes, and
I could hardly bear to think of his being ill. I thought of all his
goodness and forbearance to me, and wondered what would bec