There were shops in abundance, where men, better looking than he, smiled over counters, and carried parcels, and stood bare-headed on the pavement at carriage-doors. But Holdsworth was still too much the sailor at heart to tolerate the notion of shop-serving. He would start a little school rather than do that. And indeed school-keeping seemed more feasible than anything else. Mrs. Parrot’s lodgings would serve him there; boys would assemble by degrees; and he could set and hear lessons, and teach writing and mathematics, as well as any university man. Meanwhile, let him try the bank. It faced the market-place in the High Street, had a well-worn door-step and stout, noisy swinging doors. Holdsworth entered, and found himself in a badly-lighted office, with a counter across it, behind which were three or four clerks. A man who looked a fourth-rate farmer was paying money in, and whilst he counted a great accumulation of greasy silver, which he had discharged in company with a number of soiled, infragrant cheques out of a leather bag, he paused at every twenty to submit an observation of a rural nature to the intelligence of an elderly personage with long whiskers, and a somewhat Hebraical cast of visage, behind the counter. The manager, for so the long-whiskered man was, observing Holdsworth to be a stranger, politely asked him his business. “Can I speak to the manager?” “Certainly, sir; _I_ am the manager. Walk this way, please.” Saying which, the manager bustled importantly into a back room, and threw open a side door for Holdsworth to enter. “Pray be seated, sir. Nice weather.” And the manager drew a chair to a desk, clasped his hands on a volume of interest-tables, and fixed his eyes on Holdsworth. “I have called to inquire if you are in want of a clerk,” said Holdsworth. “I beg your pardon?” exclaimed the manager. Holdsworth repeated his remark, adding that he was in want of a situation, and would be glad to fill any vacancy there might be in the staff of the bank clerks. The manager, who had expected something very different from this, got up instantly; his business-smile vanished, he thrust his hands into his breeches pockets, and exclaimed: “Clerk, sir! Who told you we wanted a clerk?” “Nobody. I have called here at my own suggestion.” “God bless my heart! You are quite out of order, sir! Really, these intrusions upon my time .... you should have explained your wish at the counter. When we want a clerk, we know where to find one, backed, sir, with first-class securities and influential recommendations.” “Then I have made a mistake, that’s all,” said Holdsworth, surveying the manager with great disgust; and paying no further heed to the protests with which the other followed him to the door, he walked into the High Street. This summary treatment was enough to last him one day. His indignation yielded to depression, and he returned slowly and moodily to his lodgings.