depression was almost intolerable.

When he was back at the office it made him very sore to listen to Watson's
account of the short holiday. They had had some jolly girls staying with
them, and after dinner they had cleared out the drawing-room and had a
dance.

"I didn't get to bed till three and I don't know how I got there then. By
George, I was squiffy."

At last Philip asked desperately:

"How does one get to know people in London?"

Watson looked at him with surprise and with a slightly contemptuous
amusement.

"Oh, I don't know, one just knows them. If you go to dances you soon get
to know as many people as you can do with."

Philip hated Watson, and yet he would have given anything to change places
with him. The old feeling that he had had at school came back to him, and
he tried to throw himself into the other's skin, imagining what life would
be if he were Watson.

XXXVIII

At the end of the year there was a great deal to do. Philip went to
various places with a clerk named Thompson and spent the day monotonously
calling out items of expenditure, which the other checked; and sometimes
he was given long pages of figures to add up. He had never had a head for
figures, and he could only do this slowly. Thompson grew irritated at his
mistakes. His fellow-clerk was a long, lean man of forty, sallow, with
black hair and a ragged moustache; he had hollow cheeks and deep lines on
each side of his nose. He took a dislike to Philip because he was an
articled clerk. Because he could put down three hundred guineas and keep
himself for five years Philip had the chance of a career; while he, with
his experience and ability, had no possibility of ever being more than a
clerk at thirty-five shillings a week. He was a cross-grained man,
oppressed by a large family, and he resented the superciliousness which he
fancied he saw in Philip. He sneered at Philip because he was better
educated than himself, and he mocked at Philip's pronunciation; he could
not forgive him because he spoke without a cockney accent, and when he
talked to him sarcastically exaggerated his aitches. At first his manner
was merely gruff and repellent, but as he discovered that Philip had no
gift for accountancy he took pleasure in humiliating him; his attacks were
gross and silly, but they wounded Philip, and in self-defence he assumed
an attitude of superiority which he did not feel.

"Had a bath this morning?" Thompson said when Philip