nd to Mr Barnacle, whom I found
explaining to Smith his duties in the Import Department. He briefly
recapitulated the lecture for my benefit, and then dismissed us both
under the charge of Mr Doubleday to our duties, and by the time one
o'clock was reached that day, and I was informed I might go out for
twenty minutes for my dinner, I was quite settled down as junior clerk
in the Export Department of Merrett, Barnacle, and Company.

CHAPTER TWELVE.

HOW MY FRIEND SMITH AND I KNOCKED ABOUT A BIT IN OUR NEW QUARTERS.

Smith and I had a good deal more than dinner to discuss that morning as
we rested for twenty minutes from our office labours.

He was very much in earnest about his new work, I could see; and I felt,
as I listened to him, that my own aspirations for success were not
nearly as deep-seated as his. He didn't brag, or build absurd castles
in the air; but he made no secret of the fact that now he was once in
the business he meant to get on, and expected pretty confidently that he
would do so.

I wished I could feel half as sure of myself. At any rate, I was
encouraged by Jack Smith's enthusiasm, and returned at the end of my
twenty minutes to my desk with every intention of distinguishing myself
at my work.

But somehow everything was so novel, and I was so curiously disposed,
that I could not prevent my thoughts wandering a good deal, or listening
to the constant running fire of small talk that was going on among my
fellow-clerks. And this was all the less to be wondered at, since I
myself was a prominent topic of conversation.

Mr Doubleday was a most curious mixture of humour, pomposity, and
business, which made it very hard to know how exactly to take him. If I
dared to laugh at a joke, he fired up, and ordered me angrily to get on
with my work. And if I did become engrossed in the figures and entries
before me, he was sure to trip me up with some act or speech of
pleasantry.

"Why don't you stick a nib on the end of your nose and write with it?"
he inquired, as I was poring over an account-book in front of me, trying
to make out the rather minute hieroglyphics contained therein.

I withdrew my nose, blushingly, to a more moderate distance, a motion
which appeared greatly to entertain my fellow-clerks, whose amusement
only added to my confusion.

"Hullo! I say," said Doubleday, "no blushing allowed here, is there,
Wallop?"

"Rather not. No one ever saw _you_ blush," replied Mr Wallop