Page 255 - of-human-bondage-

do.’
He went into the next room and after a little while came
out with a large cardboard box. It contained a vast num-
ber of letters in great disorder, and he told Philip to sort
them out and arrange them alphabetically according to the
names of the writers.
‘I’ll take you to the room in which the articled clerk
generally sits. There’s a very nice fellow in it. His name is
Watson. He’s a son of Watson, Crag, and Thompson—you
know—the brewers. He’s spending a year with us to learn
business.’
Mr. Goodworthy led Philip through the dingy office,
where now six or eight clerks were working, into a narrow
room behind. It had been made into a separate apartment
by a glass partition, and here they found Watson sitting
back in a chair, reading The Sportsman. He was a large,
stout young man, elegantly dressed, and he looked up as
Mr. Goodworthy entered. He asserted his position by call-
ing the managing clerk Goodworthy. The managing clerk
objected to the familiarity, and pointedly called him Mr.
Watson, but Watson, instead of seeing that it was a rebuke,
accepted the title as a tribute to his gentlemanliness.
‘I see they’ve scratched Rigoletto,’ he said to Philip, as
soon as they were left alone.
‘Have they?’ said Philip, who knew nothing about horse-
racing.
He looked with awe upon Watson’s beautiful clothes.
His tail-coat fitted him perfectly, and there was a valuable
pin artfully stuck in the middle of an enormous tie. On

Of Human Bondage