style="font-size:15px;"> Although a man may lose a sense of his own importance when he is a mere unit among a busy throng, all utterly regardless of him, it by no means follows that he can dispossess himself, with equal facility, of a very strong sense of the importance and magnitude of his cares. The unhappy state of his own affairs was the one idea which occupied the brain of Nicholas, walk as fast as he would; and when he tried to dislodge it by speculating on the situation and prospects of the people who surrounded him, he caught himself, in a few seconds, contrasting their condition with his own, and gliding almost imperceptibly back into his old train of thought again.
Occupied in these reflections, as he was making his way along one of the great public thoroughfares of London, he chanced to raise his eyes to a blue board, whereon was inscribed, in characters of gold, ‘General Agency Office; for places and situations of all kinds inquire within.’ It was a shop-front, fitted up with a gauze blind and an inner door; and in the window hung a long and tempting array of written placards, announcing vacant places of every grade, from a secretary’s to a foot-boy’s.
Nicholas halted, instinctively, before this temple of promise, and ran his eye over the capital-text openings in life which were so profusely displayed. When he had completed his survey he walked on a little way, and then back, and then on again; at length, after pausing irresolutely several times before the door of the General Agency Office, he made up his mind, and stepped in.
He found himself in a little floor-clothed room, with a high desk railed off in one corner, behind which sat a lean youth with cunning eyes and a protruding chin, whose performances in capital-text darkened the window. He had a thick ledger lying open before him, and with the fingers of his right hand inserted between the leaves, and his eyes fixed on a very fat old lady in a mob-cap – evidently the proprietress of the establishment – who was airing herself at the fire, seemed to be only waiting her directions to refer to some entries contained within its rusty clasps.
As there was a board outside, which acquainted the public that servants-of-all-work were perpetually in waiting to be hired from ten till four, Nicholas knew at once that some half-dozen strong young women, each with pattens and an umbrella, who were sitting upon a form in one corner, were in attendance for that purpose: especially as the poor things looked anxious and weary. He was not quite so certain of the callings and stations of two smart young ladies who were in conversation with the fat lady before the fire, until – having sat himself down in a corner, and remarked that he would wait until the other customers had been served – the fat lady resumed the dialogue which his entrance had interrupted.
‘Cook, Tom,’ said the fat lady, still airing herself as aforesaid.
‘Cook,’ said Tom, turning over some leaves of the ledger. ‘Well!’
‘Read out an easy place or two,’ said the fat lady.
‘Pick out very light ones, if you please, young man,’ interposed a genteel female, in shepherd’s-plaid boots, who appeared to be the client.
‘“Mrs. Marker,”’ said Tom, reading, ‘“Russell Place, Russell Square; offers eighteen guineas; tea and sugar found. Two in family, and see very little company. Five servants kept. No man. No followers.”’
‘Oh Lor!’ tittered the client. ‘That won’t do. Read another, young man, will you?’
‘“Mrs. Wrymug,”’ said Tom, ‘“Pleasant Place, Finsbury. Wages, twelve guineas. No tea, no sugar. Serious family – “’
‘Ah! you needn’t mind reading that,’ interrupted the client.
‘“Three serious footmen,”’ said Tom, impressively.
‘Three? did you say?’ asked the client in an altered tone.
‘Three serious footmen,’ replied Tom. ‘“Cook, housemaid, and nursemaid; each female servant required to join the Little Bethel Congregation three times every Sunday – with a serious footman. If the cook is more serious than the footman, she will be expected to improve the footman; if the footman is more serious than the cook, he will be expected to improve the cook.”’
‘I’ll take the address of that place,’ said the client; ‘I don’t know but what it mightn’t suit me pretty well.’
‘Here’s another,’ remarked Tom, turning over the leaves. ‘“Family of Mr Gallanbile, MP. Fifteen guineas, tea and sugar, and servants allowed to see male cousins, if godly. Note. Cold dinner in the kitchen on the Sabbath, Mr. Gallanbile being devoted to the Observance question. No victuals whatever cooked on the Lord’s Day, with the exception of dinner for Mr. and Mrs. Gallanbile, which, being a work of piety and necessity, is exempted. Mr. Gallanbile dines late on the day of rest, in order to prevent the sinfulness of the cook’s dressing herself.”’
‘I don’t think that’ll answer as well as the other,’ said the client, after a little whispering with her friend. ‘I’ll take the other direction, if you please, young man. I can but come back again, if it don’t do.’
Tom made out the address, as requested, and the genteel client, having satisfied the fat lady with a small fee, meanwhile, went away accompanied by her friend.
As Nicholas opened his mouth, to request the young man to turn to letter S, and let him know what secretaryships remained undisposed of, there came into the office an applicant, in whose favour he immediately retired, and whose appearance both surprised and interested him.
This was a young lady who could be scarcely eighteen, of very slight and delicate figure, but exquisitely shaped, who, walking timidly up to the desk, made an inquiry, in a very low tone of voice, relative to some situation as governess, or companion to a lady. She raised her veil, for an instant, while she preferred the inquiry, and disclosed a countenance of most uncommon beauty, though shaded by a cloud of sadness, which, in one so young, was doubly remarkable. Having received a card of reference to some person on the books, she made the usual acknowledgment, and glided away.
She was neatly, but very quietly attired; so much so, indeed, that it seemed as though her dress, if it had been worn by one who imparted fewer graces of her own to it, might have looked poor and shabby. Her attendant – for she had one – was a red-faced, round-eyed, slovenly girl, who, from a certain roughness about the bare arms that peeped from under her draggled shawl, and the half-washed-out traces of smut and blacklead which tattooed her countenance, was clearly of a kin with the servants-of-all-work on the form: between whom and herself there had passed various grins and glances, indicative of the freemasonry of the craft.
This girl followed her mistress; and, before Nicholas had recovered from the first effects of his surprise and admiration, the young lady was gone. It is not a matter of such complete and utter improbability as some sober people may think, that he would have followed them out, had he not been restrained by what passed between the fat lady and her book-keeper.
‘When is she coming again, Tom?’ asked the fat lady.
‘Tomorrow morning,’ replied Tom, mending his pen.
‘Where have you sent her to?’ asked the fat lady.
‘Mrs. Clark’s,’ replied Tom.
‘She’ll have a nice life of it, if she goes there,’ observed the fat lady, taking a pinch of snuff from a tin box.
Tom made no other reply than thrusting his tongue into his cheek, and pointing the feather of his pen towards Nicholas – reminders which elicited from the fat lady an inquiry, of ‘Now, sir, what can we do for you?’
Nicholas
