Of Human Bondage
nothing. Philip, with his training in Paris, would be very useful; it
was only a matter of waiting a little and he was bound to get a
well-paid job to design costumes and draw posters. Philip made a poster
for the summer sale and Athelny took it away. Two days later he brought
it back, saying that the manager admired it very much and regretted
with all his heart that there was no vacancy just then in that
department. Philip asked whether there was nothing else he could do.
“I’m afraid not.”
“Are you quite sure?”
“Well, the fact is they’re advertising for a shop-walker tomorrow,”
said Athelny, looking at him doubtfully through his glasses.
“D’you think I stand any chance of getting it?”
Athelny was a little confused; he had led Philip to expect something
much more splendid; on the other hand he was too poor to go on
providing him indefinitely with board and lodging.
“You might take it while you wait for something better. You always
stand a better chance if you’re engaged by the firm already.”
“I’m not proud, you know,” smiled Philip.
“If you decide on that you must be there at a quarter to nine tomorrow
morning.”
Notwithstanding the war there was evidently much difficulty in finding
work, for when Philip went to the shop many men were waiting already.
He recognised some whom he had seen in his own searching, and there was
one whom he had noticed lying about the park in the afternoon. To
Philip now that suggested that he was as homeless as himself and passed
the night out of doors. The men were of all sorts, old and young, tall
and short; but every one had tried to make himself smart for the
interview with the manager: they had carefully brushed hair and
scrupulously clean hands. They waited in a passage which Philip learnt
afterwards led up to the dining-hall and the work rooms; it was broken
every few yards by five or six steps. Though there was electric light
in the shop here was only gas, with wire cages over it for protection,
and it flared noisily. Philip arrived punctually, but it was nearly ten
o’clock when he was admitted into the office. It was three-cornered,
like a cut of cheese lying on its side: on the walls were pictures of
women in corsets, and two poster-proofs, one of a man in pyjamas, green
and white in large stripes, and the other of a ship in full sail
ploughing an azure sea: on the sail was printed in large letters ‘great
white sale.’ The widest side of the office was the back of one of the
shop-windows, which was being dressed at the time, and an assistant
went to and fro during the interview. The manager was reading a letter.
He was a florid man, with sandy hair and a large sandy moustache; from
the middle of his watch-chain hung a bunch of football medals. He sat
in his shirt sleeves at a large desk with a telephone by his side;
before him were the day’s advertisements, Athelny’s work, and cuttings
from newspapers pasted on a card. He gave Philip a glance but did not
speak to him; he dictated a letter to the typist, a girl who sat at a
small table in one corner; then he asked Philip his name, age, and what
experience he had had. He spoke with a cockney twang in a high,
metallic voice which he seemed not able always to control; Philip
noticed that his upper teeth were large and protruding; they gave you
the impression that they were loose and would come out if you gave them
a sharp tug.
“I think Mr. Athelny has spoken to you about me,” said Philip.
“Oh, you are the young feller who did that poster?”
“Yes, sir.”
“No good to us, you know, not a bit of good.”
He looked Philip up and down. He seemed to notice that Philip was in
some way different from the men who had preceded him.
“You’d ’ave to get a frock coat, you know. I suppose you ’aven’t got
one. You seem a respectable young feller. I suppose you found art
didn’t pay.”
Philip could not tell whether he meant to engage him or not. He threw
remarks at him in a hostile way.
“Where’s your home?”
“My father and mother died when I was a child.”
“I like to give young fellers a chance. Many’s the one I’ve given their
chance to and they’re managers of departments now. And they’re grateful
to me, I’ll say that for them. They know what I done for them. Start at
the bottom of the ladder, that’s the only way to learn the business,
and then if you stick to it there’s no knowing what it can lead to. If
you suit, one of these days you may find yourself in a position like
what mine is. Bear that in mind, young feller.”
“I’m very anxious to do my best, sir,” said Philip.
He knew that he must put in the sir whenever he could, but it sounded
odd to him, and he was afraid of overdoing it. The manager liked
talking. It gave him a happy consciousness of his own importance, and
he did not give Philip his decision till he had used a great many
words.
“Well, I daresay you’ll do,” he said at last, in a pompous way. “Anyhow
I don’t mind giving you a trial.”
“Thank you very much, sir.”
“You can start at once. I’ll give you six shillings a week and your
keep. Everything found, you know; the six shillings is only pocket
money, to do what you like with, paid monthly. Start on Monday. I
suppose you’ve got no cause of complaint with that.”
“No, sir.”
“Harrington Street, d’you know where that is, Shaftesbury Avenue.
That’s where you sleep. Number ten, it is. You can sleep there on
Sunday night, if you like; that’s just as you please, or you can send
your box there on Monday.” The manager nodded: “Good-morning.”
CIII
Mrs. Athelny lent Philip money to pay his landlady enough of her bill
to let him take his things away. For five shillings and the pawn-ticket
on a suit he was able to get from a pawnbroker a frock coat which
fitted him fairly well. He redeemed the rest of his clothes. He sent
his box to Harrington Street by Carter Patterson and on Monday morning
went with Athelny to the shop. Athelny introduced him to the buyer of
the costumes and left him. The buyer was a pleasant, fussy little man
of thirty, named Sampson; he shook hands with Philip, and, in order to
show his own accomplishment of which he was very proud, asked him if he
spoke French. He was surprised when Philip told him he did.
“Any other language?”
“I speak German.”
“Oh! I go over to Paris myself occasionally. Parlez-vous francais? Ever
been to Maxim’s?”
Philip was stationed at the top of the stairs in the ‘costumes.’ His
work consisted in directing people to the various departments. There
seemed a great many of them as Mr. Sampson tripped them off his tongue.
Suddenly he noticed that Philip limped.
“What’s the matter with your leg?” he asked.
“I’ve got a club-foot,” said Philip. “But it doesn’t prevent my walking
or anything like that.”
The buyer looked at it for a moment doubtfully, and Philip surmised
that he was wondering why the manager had engaged him. Philip knew that
he had not noticed there was anything the matter with him.
“I don’t expect you to get them all correct the first day. If you’re in
any doubt all you’ve got to do is to ask one of the young ladies.”
Mr. Sampson turned away; and Philip, trying to remember where this or
the other department was, watched anxiously for the customer in search
of information. At one o’clock he went up to dinner. The dining-room,
on the top floor of the vast building, was large, long, and well lit;
but all the windows were shut to keep out the dust, and there was a
horrid smell of cooking. There were long tables covered with cloths,
with big glass bottles of water at intervals, and down the centre salt
cellars and bottles of vinegar. The assistants crowded in noisily, and
sat down on forms still warm from those who had dined at twelve-thirty.
“No pickles,” remarked the man next to Philip.
He was a tall thin young man, with a hooked nose and a pasty face; he
had a long head, unevenly shaped as though the skull had been pushed in
here and there oddly, and on his forehead and neck were large acne
spots red and inflamed. His name was Harris. Philip discovered that on
some days there were large soup-plates down the table full of mixed
pickles. They were very popular. There were no knives and forks, but in
a minute a large fat boy in a white coat came in with a couple of
handfuls of them and threw them loudly on the middle of the table. Each
man took what he wanted; they were warm and greasy from recent washing
in dirty water. Plates of meat swimming in gravy were handed round by
boys in white jackets, and as they flung each plate down with the quick
gesture of a prestidigitator the gravy slopped over on to the
table-cloth. Then they brought large dishes of cabbages and potatoes;
the sight of them turned Philip’s stomach; he noticed that everyone
poured quantities of vinegar over them. The noise was awful. They
talked and laughed and shouted, and there was the clatter of knives and
forks, and strange sounds of eating. Philip was glad to get back into
the department. He was beginning to remember where each one was, and
had less often to ask one of the assistants, when somebody wanted to
know the way.
“First to the right. Second on the left, madam.”
One or two of the girls spoke to him, just a word when things were
slack, and he felt they were taking his measure. At five he was sent up
again to the dining-room for tea. He was glad to sit down. There were
large slices of bread heavily spread with butter; and many had pots of
jam, which were kept in the ‘store’ and had their names written on.
Philip was exhausted when work stopped at half past six. Harris, the
man he had sat next to at dinner, offered to take him over to
Harrington Street to show him where he was to sleep. He told Philip
there was a spare bed in his room, and, as the other rooms were full,
he expected Philip would be put there. The house in Harrington Street
had been a bootmaker’s; and the shop was used as a bed-room; but it was
very dark, since the window had been boarded three parts up, and as
this did not open the only ventilation came from a small skylight at
the far end. There was a musty smell, and Philip was thankful that he
would not have to sleep there. Harris took him up to the sitting-room,
which was on the first floor; it had an old piano in it with a keyboard
that looked like a row of decayed teeth; and on the table in a
cigar-box without a lid was a set of dominoes; old numbers of The
Strand Magazine and of The Graphic were lying about. The other rooms
were used as bed-rooms. That in which Philip was to sleep was at the
top of the house. There were six beds in it, and a trunk or a box stood
by the side of each. The only furniture was a chest of drawers: it had
four large drawers and two small ones, and Philip as the new-comer had
one of these; there were keys to them, but as they were all alike they
were not of much use, and Harris advised him to keep his valuables in
his trunk. There was a looking-glass on the chimney-piece. Harris
showed Philip the lavatory, which was a fairly large room with eight
basins in a row, and here all the inmates did their washing. It led
into another room in which were two baths, discoloured, the woodwork
stained with soap; and in them were dark rings at various intervals
which indicated the water marks of different baths.
When Harris and Philip went back to their bed-room they found a tall
man changing his clothes and a boy of sixteen whistling as loud as he
could while he brushed his hair. In a minute or two without saying a
word to anybody the tall man went out. Harris winked at the boy, and
the boy, whistling still, winked back. Harris told Philip that the man
was called Prior; he had been in the army and now served in the silks;
he kept pretty much to himself, and he went off every night, just like