ust needs be an absolutely vain attempt.

Maybe I had luck with me this time. Luck often took such a devious
course, and I started for Groenlandsleret.

The last spasm that had darted through my head had exhausted me a
little, and I walked very slowly and thought over what I would say to
him.

Perhaps he was a good soul; if the whim seized him he might pay me for
my work a shilling in advance, even without my asking for it. People of
that sort had sometimes the most capital ideas.

I stole into a doorway and blackened the knees of my trousers with
spittle to try and make them look a little respectable, left the parcel
behind me in a dark corner at the back of a chest, and entered the
little shop.

A man is standing pasting together bags made of old newspaper.

"I would like to see Mr. Christie," I said.

"That's me!" replied the man.

"Indeed!" Well, my name was so-and-so. I had taken the liberty of
sending him an application, I did not know if it had been of any use.

He repeated my name a couple of times and commenced to laugh.

"Well now, you shall see," he said, taking my letter out of his
breast-pocket, "if you will just be good enough to see how you deal
with dates, sir. You dated your letter 1848," and the man roared with
laughter.

"Yes, that was rather a mistake," I said, abashed--a distraction, a
want of thought; I admitted it.

"You see I must have a man who, as a matter of fact, makes no mistakes
in figures," said he. "I regret it, your handwriting is clear, and I
like your letter, too, but--"

I waited a while; this could not possibly be the man's final say. He
busied himself again with the bags.

"Yes, it was a pity," I said; "really an awful pity, but of course it
would not occur again; and, after all, surely this little error could
not have rendered me quite unfit to keep books?"

"No, I didn't say that," he answered, "but in the meantime it had so
much weight with me that I decided at once upon another man."

"So the place is filled?"

"Yes."

"A--h, well, then there's nothing more to be said about it!"

"No! I'm sorry, but--"

"Good-evening!" said I.

Fury welled up in me, blazing with brutal strength. I fetched my parcel
from the entry, set my teeth together, jostled against the peaceful
folk on the footpath, and never once asked their pardon.

As one man stopped and set me to rights rather sharply for my
behaviour, I turned round and screamed a single meaningless word in