Joyce walked out apathetically on to the landing. It was a nest of city offices in a great block of buildings in Fenchurch Street, a labyrinth of staircases, passages, and ground-glass doors black-lettered with the names of firms. He was going through them systematically. Often he could not gain access to a person in authority. When he succeeded, it was the same history of rebuff. He felt somewhat downcast at the result of this last interview, the cheerful alacrity with which he had been received having given him an unreasonable hope. He paused for a few moments deciding upon what door to try next. Some names looked encouraging, others forbidding--a futile superstition, yet one not without influence upon his unfed mind. Why “Griffith & Swan” should have attracted and “Willoughby Bros.” repelled him is a psychological problem that must forever remain insoluble. It is none the less a fact that he bent his steps along the passage to the door of the first-mentioned firm. But there he was repulsed at the outset. The chiefs were engaged. Had he an appointment? What was his business? The only way to see the chiefs was by writing to fix an interview. Joyce retired, climbed wearily up the stone staircase to the next floor. Everywhere the same monotonous result. At last his application was seriously entertained. His heart beat anxiously. It was at a firm of shipping agents. Two clerks had gone on their holiday, another one had just that morning fallen ill. They were short-handed. The junior partner, a brisk young fellow, looked shrewdly at Joyce, divining his education and capacity. “I could give you some temporary work, certainly. Only too glad, for we are in a hole. But of course we must have some references.” “I am afraid I can give you none,” replied Joyce. “I have had a good education and business training, and I could do your work. But I’m a lonely man--without friends.” “What have you been doing lately for a living.” The matter-of-fact question turned his heart sick. He had known that he would have to answer it before he could enter upon any employment; but he had always shrunk from formulating a plausible reply, weakly trusting to his mother-wit when the dreaded moment should come. Now his mother-wit deserted him. He could think of nothing but the past reality. “I would rather tell you nothing about myself,” he said lamely. The young partner shrugged his shoulders good-humouredly. “Well, that’s your affair. But you see we can’t take a stranger into our office without his giving us some formal voucher for his honesty.” Joyce looked at him appealingly, with glistening eyes, a new Moses on Mount Nebo. Only then did he fully realise the utter hopelessness of his position. The veriest office-boy needed a certificate of character. He had none.