etic! geometry! we played with them. The love of work! it was a
passion with us. Our moral character! it would have adorned a Free Kirk
Elder. "I could call on you to-morrow or Friday between eleven and one,
or on Saturday any time up till two. Salary required, two guineas a
week. An early answer will oblige. Yours truly."

The old stagers did not buzz. Hour after hour they sat writing,
steadily, methodically, with day by day less hope and heavier fears:

"Sir,--Your advt. in to-day's _D. T._ I am--" of such and such an age.
List of qualifications less lengthy, set forth with more modesty; object
desired being air of verisimilitude.--"If you decide to engage me I will
endeavour to give you every satisfaction. Any time you like to appoint
I will call on you. I should not ask a high salary to start with. Yours
obediently."

Dozens of the first letter, hundreds of the second, I wrote with painful
care, pen carefully chosen, the one-inch margin down the left hand side
of the paper first portioned off with dots. To three or four I received
a curt reply, instructing me to call. But the shyness that had stood so
in my way during the earlier half of my school days had now, I know not
why, returned upon me, hampering me at every turn. A shy child grown-up
folks at all events can understand and forgive; but a shy young man
is not unnaturally regarded as a fool. I gave the impression of being
awkward, stupid, sulky. The more I strove against my temperament
the worse I became. My attempts to be at my ease, to assert myself,
resulted--I could see it myself--only in rudeness.

"Well, I have got to see one or two others. We will write and let you
know," was the conclusion of each interview, and the end, as far as I
was concerned, of the enterprise.

My few pounds, guard them how I would, were dwindling rapidly. Looking
back, it is easy enough to regard one's early struggles from a humorous
point of view. One knows the story, it all ended happily. But at the
time there is no means of telling whether one's biography is going to be
comedy or tragedy. There were moments when I felt confident it was going
to be the latter. Occasionally, when one is feeling well, it is not
unpleasant to contemplate with pathetic sympathy one's own death-bed.
One thinks of the friends and relations who at last will understand and
regret one, be sorry they had not behaved themselves better. But myself,
there was no one to regret. I felt very small, very h