New Serjeant's Court was a large modern building of very red brick with terra-cotta facings, eight storeys high; but in spite of its faults of colour and its excessive height, ample wall spaces and temperate2 ornamentation gave it a dignity and comeliness3 sufficient to distinguish it from other buildings in the locality. In the centre of the court was an oval patch of brown earth, with a few trees whose pale-leaved tops, struggling towards sunlight, reached to the middle of the third storey. Round this plantation4 ran an immaculate roadway of wooden blocks, flanked by an equally immaculate asphalt footpath5. The court possessed6 its own private lamp-posts, and these were wrought7 of iron in an antique design.
Men and boys, grave and unconsciously oppressed by the burden of the coming day, were continually appearing out of the gloom of the long tunnelled entrance and vanishing into one or other of the twelve doorways8. Presently a carriage and pair drove in, and stopped opposite Richard. A big man of about fifty, with a sagacious red and blue face, jumped alertly out, followed by an attentive9 clerk carrying a blue sack. It seemed to Richard that he knew the features of the big man from portraits, and, following the pair up the staircase of No. 2, he discovered from the legend on the door through which they disappeared that he had been in the presence of Her Majesty's Attorney-General. Simultaneously10 with a misgiving11 as to his ability to reach the standard of clerical ability doubtless required by Messrs. Curpet and Smythe, who did business cheek by jowl with an attorney-general and probably employed him, came an elevation12 of spirit as he darkly guessed what none can realise completely, that a man's future lies on his own knees, and on the knees of no gods whatsoever13.
He continued his way upstairs, but Messrs. Curpet and Smythe's portal was still locked. Looking down the well, he espied14 a boy crawling reluctantly and laboriously15 upward, with a key in his hand which he dragged across the bannisters. In course of time the boy reached Messrs. Curpet and Smythe's door, and opening it stepped neatly16 over a pile of letters which lay immediately within. Richard followed him.
"Oh! My name's Larch17," said Richard, as if it had just occurred to him that the boy might be interested in the fact. "Do you know which is my room?"
The boy conducted him along a dark passage with green doors on either side, to a room at the end. It was furnished mainly with two writing-tables and two armchairs; in one corner was a disused copying-press, in another an immense pile of reporters' note-books; on the mantelpiece, a tumbler, a duster, and a broken desk lamp.
"That's your seat," said the boy, pointing to the larger table, and disappeared. Richard disposed of his coat and hat and sat down, trying to feel at ease and not succeeding.
At five minutes past ten a youth entered with the "Times" under his arm. Richard waited for him to speak, but he merely stared and took off his overcoat. Then he said,—
"You've got my hook. If you don't mind I'll put your things on this other one."
The youth spread his back luxuriously19 to the empty fireplace and opened the "Times," when another and smaller boy put his head in at the door.
The youth silently handed over the advertisement pages which were lying on the table. In a minute the boy returned.
"Mr. Alder says he wants the inside of the 'Times.'"
"Tell Mr. Alder to go to hell, with my compliments." The boy hesitated.
"Go on, now," Jenkins insisted. The boy hung on the door-handle, smiling dubiously21, and then went out.
"Here, wait a minute!" Jenkins called him back. "Perhaps you'd better give it him. Take the damn thing away."
A sound of hurried footsteps in the next room was succeeded by an imperious call for Jenkins, at which Jenkins slipped nimbly into his chair and untied22 a bundle of papers.
"Jenkins!" the call came again, with a touch of irritation23 in it, but Jenkins did not move. The door was thrust open.
"Yes, Mr. Smythe."
"I never take any notice of Smythe's calls," said Jenkins, when he returned. "If he wants me, he must either ring or fetch me. If I once began it, I should be running in and out of his room all day, and I've quite enough to do without that."
"Fidgety, eh?" Richard suggested.
"Fidgety's no word for it, I tell you. Alder—that's the manager, you know—said only yesterday that he has less trouble with forty Chancery actions of Curpet's than with one county-court case of Smythe's. I know I'd a jolly sight sooner write forty of Curpet's letters than ten of Smythe's. I wish I'd got your place, and you'd got mine. I suppose you can write shorthand rather fast."
"Middling," said Richard. "About 120."
"Oh! We had a man once who could do 150, but he'd been a newspaper reporter. I do a bit over a hundred, if I've not had much to drink overnight. Let's see, they're giving you twenty-five bob, aren't they?"
Richard nodded.
"The man before you had thirty-five, and he couldn't spell worth a brass25 button. I only get fifteen, although I've been here seven years. A damn shame I call it! But Curpet's beastly near. If he'd give some other people less, and me a bit more...."
"Who are 'some other people'?" asked Richard, smiling.
"Well, there's old Aked. He sits in the outer office—you won't have seen him because he doesn't generally come till eleven. They give him a pound a week, just for doing a bit of engrossing26 when he feels inclined to engross27, and for being idle when he feels inclined to be idle. He's a broken-down something or other,—used to be clerk to Curpet's father. He has some dibs of his own, and this just finds him amusement. I bet he doesn't do fifty folios a week. And he's got the devil's own temper."
Jenkins was proceeding28 to describe other members of the staff when the entry of Mr. Curpet himself put an end to the recital29. Mr. Curpet was a small man, with a round face and a neatly trimmed beard.
"Good morning, Larch. If you'll kindly30 come into my room, I'll dictate31 my letters. Good morning, Jenkins." He smiled and withdrew, leaving Richard excessively surprised at his suave32 courtesy.
In his own room Mr. Curpet sat before a pile of letters, and motioned Richard to a side table.
"You will tell me if I go too fast," he said, and began to dictate regularly, with scarcely a pause. The pile of letters gradually disappeared into a basket. Before half a dozen letters were done Richard comprehended that he had become part of a business machine of far greater magnitude than anything to which he had been accustomed in Bursley. This little man with the round face dealt impassively with tens of thousands of pounds; he mortgaged whole streets, bullied33 railway companies, and wrote familiarly to lords. In the middle of one long letter, a man came panting in, whom Richard at once took for Mr. Alder, the Chancery manager. His rather battered34 silk hat was at the back of his head, and he looked distressed35.
"I'm sorry to say we've lost that summons in Rice v. The L. R. Railway."
"Really!" said Mr. Curpet. "Better appeal, and brief a leader, eh?"
"Can't appeal, Mr. Curpet."
"Well, we must make the best of it. Telegraph to the country. I'll write and keep them calm. It's a pity they were so sure. Rice will have to economise for a year or two. What was my last word, Larch?" The dictation proceeded.
One hour was allowed for lunch, and Richard spent the first moiety36 of it in viewing the ambrosial37 exteriors38 of Strand39 restaurants. With the exception of the coffee-house at Bursley, he had never been in a restaurant in his life, and he was timid of entering any of those sumptuous40 establishments whose swinging doors gave glimpses of richly decorated ceilings, gleaming tablecloths41, and men in silk hats greedily consuming dishes placed before them by obsequious42 waiters.
At last, without quite knowing how he got there, he sat in a long, low apartment, papered like an attic43 bedroom, and odorous of tea and cake. The place was crowded with young men and women indifferently well-dressed, who bent44 over uncomfortably small oblong marble-topped tables. An increasing clatter45 of crockery filled the air. Waitresses, with pale, vacant faces, dressed in dingy46 black with white aprons47, moved about with difficulty at varying rates of speed, but none of them seemed to betray an interest in Richard. Behind the counter, on which stood great polished urns49 emitting clouds of steam, were several women whose superior rank in the restaurant was denoted by a black apron48, and after five minutes had elapsed Richard observed one of these damsels pointing out himself to a waitress, who approached and listened condescendingly to his order.
A thin man, rather more than middle-aged51, with a grey beard and slightly red nose, entered and sat down opposite to Richard. Without preface he began, speaking rather fast and with an expressive52 vivacity53 rarely met with in the ageing,—
"Well, my young friend, how do you like your new place?"
Richard stared at him.
"Are you Mr. Aked?"
"The same. I suppose Master Jenkins has made you acquainted with all my peculiarities54 of temper and temperament55.—Glass of milk, roll, and two pats of butter—and, I say, my girl, try not to keep me waiting as long as you did yesterday." There was a bright smile on his face, which the waitress unwillingly56 returned.
"Don't you know," he went on, looking at Richard's plate,—"don't you know that tea and ham together are frightfully indigestible?"
"I never have indigestion."
"No matter. You soon will have if you eat tea and ham together. A young man should guard his digestion57 like his honour. Sounds funny, doesn't it? But it's right. An impaired58 digestive apparatus59 has ruined many a career. It ruined mine. You see before you, sir, what might have been an author of repute, but for a wayward stomach."
"You write?" Richard asked, interested at once, but afraid lest Mr. Aked might be cumbrously joking.
"Have you written a book?"
"Not a book. But I've contributed to all manner of magazines and newspapers."
"What magazines?"
"Well, let me see—it's so long ago. I've written for 'Cornhill.' I wrote for 'Cornhill' when Thackeray edited it. I spoke to Carlyle once."
"You did?"
"Yes. Carlyle said to me—Carlyle said to me—Carlyle said—" Mr. Aked's voice dwindled61 to an inarticulate murmur62, and, suddenly ignoring Richard's presence, he pulled a book from his pocket and began to finger the leaves. It was a French novel, "La Vie de Bohème." His face had lost all its mobile expressiveness63.
A little alarmed by such eccentricity64, and not quite sure that this associate of Carlyle was perfectly65 sane66, Richard sat silent, waiting for events. Mr. Aked was clearly accustomed to reading while he ate; he could even drink with his eyes on the book. At length he pushed his plates away from him, and closed the novel with a snap.
"I see you're from the country, Larch," he said, as if there had been no lapse50 in the conversation. "Now, why in God's name did you leave the country? Aren't there enough people in London?"
"Because I wanted to be an author," answered Richard, with more assurance than veracity67, though he spoke in good faith. The fact was that his aspirations68, hitherto so vague as to elude69 analysis, seemed within the last few minutes mysteriously to have assumed definite form.
"You're a young fool, then."
"But I've an excellent digestion."
"You won't have it if you begin to write. Take my word, you're a young fool. You don't know what you're going in for, my little friend."
"Was Murger a fool?" Richard said clumsily, determined70 to exhibit an acquaintance with "La Vie de Bohème."
"Ha! We read French, do we?"
Richard blushed. The old man got up.
At the pay-desk, waiting for change, he spoke to the cashier, a thin girl with reddish-brown hair, who coughed,—
"Did you try those lozenges?"
"Oh! yes, thanks. They taste nice."
"Beautiful day."
"Yes; my word, isn't it!"
They walked back to the office in absolute silence; but just as they were going in, Mr. Aked stopped, and took Richard by the coat.
"Have you anything special to do next Thursday night?"
"No," said Richard.
"Well, I'll take you to a little French restaurant in Soho, and we'll have dinner. Half a crown. Can you afford?"
Richard nodded.
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1
descended
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| a.为...后裔的，出身于...的 | |
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temperate
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| adj.温和的，温带的，自我克制的，不过分的 | |
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comeliness
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| n. 清秀, 美丽, 合宜 | |
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plantation
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| n.种植园，大农场 | |
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footpath
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| n.小路，人行道 | |
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possessed
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| adj.疯狂的；拥有的，占有的 | |
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wrought
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| v.引起；以…原料制作；运转；adj.制造的 | |
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doorways
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| n.门口，门道( doorway的名词复数 ) | |
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attentive
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| adj.注意的，专心的；关心(别人)的，殷勤的 | |
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simultaneously
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| adv.同时发生地，同时进行地 | |
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misgiving
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| n.疑虑，担忧，害怕 | |
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elevation
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| n.高度；海拔；高地；上升；提高 | |
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whatsoever
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| adv.（用于否定句中以加强语气）任何；pron.无论什么 | |
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espied
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| v.看到( espy的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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laboriously
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| adv.艰苦地；费力地；辛勤地；（文体等）佶屈聱牙地 | |
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neatly
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| adv.整洁地，干净地，灵巧地，熟练地 | |
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larch
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| n.落叶松 | |
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assented
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| 同意，赞成( assent的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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luxuriously
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| adv.奢侈地，豪华地 | |
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alder
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| n.赤杨树 | |
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dubiously
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| adv.可疑地，怀疑地 | |
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untied
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| 松开，解开( untie的过去式和过去分词 )； 解除，使自由； 解决 | |
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irritation
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| n.激怒，恼怒，生气 | |
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placid
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| adj.安静的，平和的 | |
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brass
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| n.黄铜；黄铜器，铜管乐器 | |
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engrossing
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| adj.使人全神贯注的，引人入胜的v.使全神贯注( engross的现在分词 ) | |
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engross
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| v.使全神贯注 | |
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proceeding
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| n.行动，进行，(pl.)会议录，学报 | |
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recital
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| n.朗诵，独奏会，独唱会 | |
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30
kindly
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| adj.和蔼的，温和的，爽快的；adv.温和地，亲切地 | |
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dictate
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| v.口授；(使)听写；指令，指示，命令 | |
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suave
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| adj.温和的；柔和的；文雅的 | |
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bullied
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| adj.被欺负了v.恐吓，威逼( bully的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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34
battered
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| adj.磨损的；v.连续猛击；磨损 | |
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distressed
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| 痛苦的 | |
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moiety
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| n.一半；部分 | |
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ambrosial
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| adj.美味的 | |
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exteriors
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| n.外面( exterior的名词复数 )；外貌；户外景色图 | |
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strand
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| vt.使（船）搁浅，使（某人）困于（某地） | |
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sumptuous
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| adj.豪华的，奢侈的，华丽的 | |
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tablecloths
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| n.桌布，台布( tablecloth的名词复数 ) | |
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obsequious
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| adj.谄媚的，奉承的，顺从的 | |
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attic
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| n.顶楼，屋顶室 | |
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bent
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| n.爱好，癖好；adj.弯的；决心的，一心的 | |
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clatter
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| v./n.(使)发出连续而清脆的撞击声 | |
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dingy
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| adj.昏暗的，肮脏的 | |
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aprons
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| 围裙( apron的名词复数 )； 停机坪，台口（舞台幕前的部份） | |
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apron
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| n.围裙；工作裙 | |
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urns
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| n.壶( urn的名词复数 )；瓮；缸；骨灰瓮 | |
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50
lapse
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| n.过失，流逝，失效，抛弃信仰，间隔；vi.堕落，停止，失效，流逝；vt.使失效 | |
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51
middle-aged
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| adj.中年的 | |
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52
expressive
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| adj.表现的，表达…的，富于表情的 | |
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vivacity
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| n.快活，活泼，精神充沛 | |
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peculiarities
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| n. 特质, 特性, 怪癖, 古怪 | |
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55
temperament
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| n.气质，性格，性情 | |
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unwillingly
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| adv.不情愿地 | |
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digestion
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| n.消化，吸收 | |
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impaired
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| adj.受损的；出毛病的；有（身体或智力）缺陷的v.损害，削弱( impair的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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apparatus
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| n.装置，器械；器具，设备 | |
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60
spoke
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| n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说 | |
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dwindled
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| v.逐渐变少或变小( dwindle的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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62
murmur
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| n.低语，低声的怨言；v.低语，低声而言 | |
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expressiveness
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| n.富有表现力 | |
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eccentricity
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| n.古怪，反常，怪癖 | |
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perfectly
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| adv.完美地，无可非议地，彻底地 | |
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sane
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| adj.心智健全的，神志清醒的，明智的，稳健的 | |
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veracity
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| n.诚实 | |
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68
aspirations
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| 强烈的愿望( aspiration的名词复数 )； 志向； 发送气音； 发 h 音 | |
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elude
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| v.躲避，困惑 | |
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determined
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| adj.坚定的；有决心的 | |
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71
peevishly
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| adv．暴躁地 | |
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flay
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| vt.剥皮；痛骂 | |
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