received the answers to a certain advertisement
which he had inserted in the newspapers,
setting forth that a young man
with excellent testimonials—he knew he
could get them from the rector of
Helmingham—was desirous of giving instruction
in the classics and mathematics.
Advertising, he thought, was a better and
more gentlemanly medium than causing a
detailed list of his accomplishments to be
inscribed in the books of the Ecclesiastical
Registry, as a horse's pedigree and
performances are entered in the horsedealer's
list; but when, after hunting for half an
hour through the columns of the newspaper's
supplement, he found his advertisement
amongst a score of others, all
of them from men with college honours, or
promising greater advantages than he could
hold forth, he began to doubt the wisdom
of his proceeding. However, he would
wait and see the result. He did so wait
for three days, but not a single line addressed,
as requested, to W. J. found its
way to Winchester-street. Then he sent
for the newspaper again, and began to
reply to the advertisements which he
thought might suit him. He had no high
thoughts or hopes, no notions of regenerating
the living generation, or of placing
tuition on a new footing, or rendering it
easy by some hitherto unexplained process.
He had been an usher in a school,
for the place of an usher in a school he
had advertised, and if he could have obtained
that position he would have been
contented. But when the few answers to
his advertisement arrived, he saw that it
was impossible to accept any of the offers
they contained. One man wanted him to
teach French with a guaranteed Parisian
accent, to devote his whole time out of
school hours to the boys, to supervise them
in the Indian sceptre athletic exercises, and
to rule over a dormitory of thirteen, "where,
in consequence of the lax supervision of the
last didaskolos, severe measures would be
required," for twenty pounds a year. Another
gentleman, whose note-paper was
ornamented with a highly florid Maltese
cross, and who dated his letter "Eve of S.
Boanerges," wished to know his opinion
of the impostor-firebrand M. Luther, and
whether he (the advertiser) had any connexions
in the florist or decorative line,
with whom an arrangement in the mutual
accommodation way could be entered into;
while a third, evidently a grave sententious
man, with a keen eye to business,
expressed, on old-fashioned Bath-post, gilt-
edged letter paper, his desire to know
"what sum W. J. would be willing to
contribute for the permission to state, after
a year's residence, that he had been one of
Dr. Sumph's most trusted helpmates and
assistants?"

No good to be got that way, then, and a
visit to Camoxons' imminent, for the money
was running very, very short, and the
conventional upturning of stones must be
proceeded with. Visit to Camoxons' paid,
after much staring through the ground-
glass windows (opaque generally, but
transparent in the Bible and Sceptre artistic bits)
much ascent and descent of two steps
cogitatively, final rush up top step wildly, and
hurried, not to say pantomimic, entrance
through the ground-glass door, to be
confronted by the oldest and most composed
of the sable-clad clerks. Bows exchanged;
name and address required; name and address
given in a low and serious whisper, and
repeated aloud in a clear high treble, each
word, as it was uttered, being transcribed
in a hand which was the very essence of
copperplate into an enormous book. Position
required? Second or third mastership
in a classical school, private tutorship,
as secretary or librarian to a nobleman
or gentleman. So glibly ran the
old gentleman's steel pen over these items
that Walter Joyce began to fancy that applicants
for one post were generally ready
and willing to take all or any, as indeed they
were. "Which university, what college?"
The old gentleman scratched his head with
the end of his steel-pen holder, and looked
across at Walter, with a benevolent expression
which seemed to convey that he would
rather the young man would say Christchurch
than St. Mary's, and Trinity in
preference to Clare. Walter Joyce grew
hot to his ear tips, and his tongue felt
too large for his mouth, as he stammered
out, "I have not been to either University—
I——," but the remainder of the
sentence was lost in the loud bang with
which the old gentleman clapped to the
heavy sides of the big book, clasped it with
its brazen clasp, and hoisted it on to a
shelf behind him with the dexterity of a
juggler.

"My good young friend," said the old
clerk, blandly; "you might have saved
yourself a vast amount of vexation, and me
a certain amount of trouble, if you had
made that announcement earlier! Good
morning!"

"But do you mean to say——"

"I mean to say that in that book at the