for the afternoon service. The streets were almost
empty, and the people who went along had a preoccupied
look; they did not saunter but walked with some definite
goal in view, and hardly anyone was alone. To
Philip they all seemed happy. He felt himself
more solitary than he had ever done in his life.
His intention had been to kill the day somehow in
the streets and then dine at a restaurant, but he
could not face again the sight of cheerful people,
talking, laughing, and making merry; so he went back
to Waterloo, and on his way through the Westminster
Bridge Road bought some ham and a couple of mince pies
and went back to Barnes. He ate his food in his
lonely little room and spent the evening with a book.
His depression was almost intolerable.
When he was back at the office it made him very sore
to listen to Watson’s account of the short holiday.
They had had some jolly girls staying with them, and
after dinner they had cleared out the drawing-room
and had a dance.
“I didn’t get to bed till three and I
don’t know how I got there then. By George,
I was squiffy.”
At last Philip asked desperately:
“How does one get to know people in London?”
Watson looked at him with surprise and with a slightly
contemptuous amusement.
“Oh, I don’t know, one just knows them.
If you go to dances you soon get to know as many people
as you can do with.”
Philip hated Watson, and yet he would have given anything
to change places with him. The old feeling that
he had had at school came back to him, and he tried
to throw himself into the other’s skin, imagining
what life would be if he were Watson.
At the end of the year there was a great deal to do.
Philip went to various places with a clerk named Thompson
and spent the day monotonously calling out items of
expenditure, which the other checked; and sometimes
he was given long pages of figures to add up.
He had never had a head for figures, and he could
only do this slowly. Thompson grew irritated at
his mistakes. His fellow-clerk was a long, lean
man of forty, sallow, with black hair and a ragged
moustache; he had hollow cheeks and deep lines on
each side of his nose. He took a dislike to Philip
because he was an articled clerk. Because he
could put down three hundred guineas and keep himself
for five years Philip had the chance of a career; while
he, with his experience and ability, had no possibility
of ever being more than a clerk at thirty-five shillings
a week. He was a cross-grained man, oppressed
by a large family, and he resented the superciliousness
which he fancied he saw in Philip. He sneered
at Philip because he was better educated than himself,
and he mocked at Philip’s pronunciation; he could
not forgive him because he spoke without a cockney
accent, and when he talked to him sarcastically exaggerated
his aitches. At first his manner was merely gruff
and repellent, but as he discovered that Philip had
no gift for accountancy he took pleasure in humiliating
him; his attacks were gross and silly, but they wounded
Philip, and in self-defence he assumed an attitude
of superiority which he did not feel.
