firm, insisted that
the manager could refuse him nothing. Philip, with his training in Paris,
would be very useful; it was only a matter of waiting a little and he was
bound to get a well-paid job to design costumes and draw posters. Philip
made a poster for the summer sale and Athelny took it away. Two days later
he brought it back, saying that the manager admired it very much and
regretted with all his heart that there was no vacancy just then in that
department. Philip asked whether there was nothing else he could do.

"I'm afraid not."

"Are you quite sure?"

"Well, the fact is they're advertising for a shop-walker tomorrow," said
Athelny, looking at him doubtfully through his glasses.

"D'you think I stand any chance of getting it?"

Athelny was a little confused; he had led Philip to expect something much
more splendid; on the other hand he was too poor to go on providing him
indefinitely with board and lodging.

"You might take it while you wait for something better. You always stand
a better chance if you're engaged by the firm already."

"I'm not proud, you know," smiled Philip.

"If you decide on that you must be there at a quarter to nine tomorrow
morning."

Notwithstanding the war there was evidently much difficulty in finding
work, for when Philip went to the shop many men were waiting already. He
recognised some whom he had seen in his own searching, and there was one
whom he had noticed lying about the park in the afternoon. To Philip now
that suggested that he was as homeless as himself and passed the night out
of doors. The men were of all sorts, old and young, tall and short; but
every one had tried to make himself smart for the interview with the
manager: they had carefully brushed hair and scrupulously clean hands.
They waited in a passage which Philip learnt afterwards led up to the
dining-hall and the work rooms; it was broken every few yards by five or
six steps. Though there was electric light in the shop here was only gas,
with wire cages over it for protection, and it flared noisily. Philip
arrived punctually, but it was nearly ten o'clock when he was admitted
into the office. It was three-cornered, like a cut of cheese lying on its
side: on the walls were pictures of women in corsets, and two
poster-proofs, one of a man in pyjamas, green and white in large stripes,
and the other of a ship in full sail ploughing an azure sea: on the sail
was printed in large letters 'great white sale.