CHAPTER ELEVEN.
HOW MY FRIEND SMITH AND I ENTERED ON NEW DUTIES IN NEW COMPANY.
The two days which followed my eventful expedition to London were among the most anxious I ever spent.

Young and unsophisticated as I was, I knew quite enough of my own affairs to feel that a crisis in my life had been reached, and that a great deal, nay, everything, depended on how my application for Merrett, Barnacle, and Company's situation turned out.
If I succeeded there, I should have made a start in life--modest enough, truly, but a start all the same--and who was to say whether from the bottom of the ladder I might not some day and somehow get to the top?
But if I missed, I knew full well my uncle would take my affairs into his own hands, and probably put me to work which would be distasteful, and in which I should be miserable.

So you see, reader, I had a good deal staked on my little venture.
The miserable thing was that I might never hear at all from the firm, but go on hoping against hope, day after day, in a suspense which would be worse than knowing straight off that I had failed.

However, I kept up appearances before my uncle, for I didn't want him to think it was no use waiting a little before he took me in hand himself.

I spent several hours a day working up my arithmetic, making out imaginary invoices against every imaginable person, and generally preparing myself for office work.