made a slight sign with one
finger, and the first in the queue stepped into the office. They filed
past him one by one and answered his questions. He put them very briefly,
keeping his eyes fixed on the applicant's face.

"Age? Experience? Why did you leave your job?"

He listened to the replies without expression. When it came to Philip's
turn he fancied that Mr. Gibbons stared at him curiously. Philip's clothes
were neat and tolerably cut. He looked a little different from the others.

"Experience?"

"I'm afraid I haven't any," said Philip.

"No good."

Philip walked out of the office. The ordeal had been so much less painful
than he expected that he felt no particular disappointment. He could
hardly hope to succeed in getting a place the first time he tried. He had
kept the newspaper and now looked at the advertisements again: a shop in
Holborn needed a salesman too, and he went there; but when he arrived he
found that someone had already been engaged. If he wanted to get anything
to eat that day he must go to Lawson's studio before he went out to
luncheon, so he made his way along the Brompton Road to Yeoman's Row.

"I say, I'm rather broke till the end of the month," he said as soon as he
found an opportunity. "I wish you'd lend me half a sovereign, will you?"

It was incredible the difficulty he found in asking for money; and he
remembered the casual way, as though almost they were conferring a favour,
men at the hospital had extracted small sums out of him which they had no
intention of repaying.

"Like a shot," said Lawson.

But when he put his hand in his pocket he found that he had only eight
shillings. Philip's heart sank.

"Oh well, lend me five bob, will you?" he said lightly.

"Here you are."

Philip went to the public baths in Westminster and spent sixpence on a
bath. Then he got himself something to eat. He did not know what to do
with himself in the afternoon. He would not go back to the hospital in
case anyone should ask him questions, and besides, he had nothing to do
there now; they would wonder in the two or three departments he had worked
in why he did not come, but they must think what they chose, it did not
matter: he would not be the first student who had dropped out without
warning. He went to the free library, and looked at the papers till they
wearied him, then he took out Stevenson's New Arabian Nights; but he
found he could not read: the words meant nothing to him, and he co