present moment are the names of sixty
gentlemen seeking just the employment
which you have named, all of whom are
not merely members of colleges, but members
who have taken rank, prizemen, first-
class men, wranglers, senior optimes; they
are on our books, and they may remain there
for months before we get them off. You
may judge, then, what chance you would
have. At most agencies they would have
taken your money and given you hope.
But we don't do that here—it isn't our
way—good morning!"

"Then you think I have no chance——"

"I'm sure of it—through us at least—
good-morning!"

Joyce would have made another effort,
but the old gentleman had already turned
on his heel, and feigned to be busy with
some letters on a desk before him, so Walter
turned round too, and silently left the
registry office.

Silently, and with an aching heart. The
old clerk had said but little, but Walter
felt that his dictum was correct, and that
all hopes of getting a situation as a tutor
were at an end. Oh, if his father had only
left him money enough to go to college,
he would have had a future before him
which—but then, Marian? He would
never have known that pure, faithful,
earnest love, failing which, life in its
brightest and best form would have been
dull and distasteful to him. He had that
love still, thank Heaven, and in that
thought there were the elements of hope,
and the promptings to bestir himself yet
once more in his hard self-appointed task
of bread-winning.

Money running very short, and time
running rapidly on. Not the shortest
step in advance since he had first set
foot in London, and the bottom of his
purse growing painfully visible. He had
taken to frequenting a small coffee-house
in the neighbourhood of Covent Garden,
where, as he munched the roll and drank
the tea, which now too often served him as
a dinner, he could read the newspapers and
scan the advertisements to see if there were
anything likely to suit him among the myriad
columns. It was a quiet and secluded
little place, where but few strangers entered
—he saw the same faces night after night, as
he noticed—and where he could have his
letters addressed to him under his initials,
which was a great comfort, as he had
noticed lately that his landlady in his
river-side lodging-house had demurred to
the receipt of so much initialled correspondence,
ascribing it, as Walter afterwards
learned from the "slavey'' or maid-of-all-
work, either to "castin' orryscopes, tellin'
charickters by 'andwritin', or rejen'rative
bolsum for the 'air!" things utterly at
variance with the respectability of her
establishment.

A quiet secluded little place, sand-floored
and spittoon-decorated, with a cosy clock
and a cosy red-faced fire, singing with
steaming kettles, and cooking chops, and
frizzling bacon; with a sleepy cat, a pet of
the customers, dozing before the hearth,
and taking occasional quarter-of-an-hour
turns round the room, to be back-rubbed,
and whisker- scratched, and tit-bit fed;
with tea and coffee and cocoa, in thick
blue China half-pint mugs, and with
bacon of which the edge was by no
means to be cut off and thrown away,
but was thick, and crisp, and delicious
as the rest of it, on willow-pattern
plates; with little yellow pats of country
butter, looking as if the cow whose impressed
form they bore had only fed upon
buttercups, as different from the ordinary
petrified cold cream which in London
passes current for butter as chalk from
cheese. "Bliffkins's"—the house was
supposed to have been leased to Bliffkins
as the Elephant, and appeared under that
title in the Directories; but no one knew
it but as "Bliffkins's"—was a Somersetshire
house, and kept a neat placard
framed and glazed in its front window to
the effect that the Somerset County Gazette
was taken in. So that among the
thin pale London folk who "used" the
house you occasionally came upon stalwart
giants, big-chested, horny-handed,
deep-voiced, with z's sticking out all over
their pronunciation, jolly Zummerzetshire
men, who brought Bliffkins the latest gossip
from his old native place of Bruton and
its neighbourhood, and who, during their
stay—and notably at cattle-show period—
were kings of the house. At ordinary
times, however, the frequenters of the
house never varied—indeed it was understood
that Bliffkins's was a "connexion,"
and did not in the least depend upon
chance custom. Certain people sat in certain
places, ordered certain refreshment,
and went away at certain hours, never
varying in the slightest particular. Mr.
Byrne, a wizened old man, who invariably
bore on his coat and on his hair traces of
fur, and fluff, and wool, who was known to
be a bird-stuffer by trade, and who was reputed
to be an extreme radical in politics