omebody; yesterday I had discovered with pain
that I was nobody; and to-day I was destined to wonder if I was even
that.

Mr Evans raised his eyebrows when I delivered my message to him.

"Are you the governor's little ward," he inquired, "who's just finished
his education? All right, my little man, we'll find a job for you. Run
up High Street and bring me the time by the market clock, and here's a
halfpenny to buy yourself sweets on the way."

It occurred to me as odd that Mr Evans should want to know the time by
a clock which was quite ten minutes' walk from the office. Still,
perhaps he had to set the office clocks by it, so I set off, wondering
whether I ought to take the halfpenny, but taking it all the same.

I decided that the dignified course would be to buy the sweets, but to
take them all back to him, so as to impress him with the fact that I was
not as devoted to juvenile creature comforts as he evidently thought me.

"Is that all you have left?" said he, when, after accomplishing my
errand, I presented them to him. "My eye! you've made good use of your
time, and no mistake."

"I've not eaten a single one," said I.

"It would have been better for your digestion if you had only eaten a
single one, instead of swallowing half the lot. I know the ways of you
boys. Well, what's the time?"

"It was twenty-five past ten."

"I didn't ask you what it was--I want to know what it is."

It then occurred to me for the first time that Mr Evans was a
humourist. It seemed to me a feeble joke, but he evidently thought it a
good one, as did also the other clerks to whom he communicated it.

The worst of it was that the more I tried to explain that, not having a
watch of my own, I could not answer for the time by the market clock at
any moment but that at which I saw it, the more they seemed to be
amused. Some suggested I should go back with a bag and bring the time
in it. Others, that I should put it on ten minutes, and then come back,
so as to arrive at the exact moment it was when I left it. Others were
of opinion that the best way would be for me to go and fetch the market
clock with me.

Mr Evans, however, decided that my talents were not equal to the task
of bringing the time in any shape or form, and that the best thing I
could do was to sit down and lick up envelopes. Which I accordingly
did, feeling rather small. I cut my tongue and spoiled my appetite over
the operation, and was heartily glad