Ernest laughed till he cried.
"What rot Shakespeare is after this," he exclaimed, involuntarily. I
remembered his essay on the Greek tragedians, and was more I _epris_ with
him than ever.
Next day he set about looking for employment, and I did not see him till
about five o'clock, when he came and said that he had had no success. The
same thing happened the next day and the day after that. Wherever he
went he was invariably refused and often ordered point blank out of the
shop; I could see by the expression of his face, though he said nothing,
that he was getting frightened, and began to think I should have to come
to the rescue. He said he had made a great many enquiries and had always
been told the same story. He found that it was easy to keep on in an old
line, but very hard to strike out into a new one.
He talked to the fishmonger in Leather Lane, where he went to buy a
bloater for his tea, casually as though from curiosity and without any
interested motive. "Sell," said the master of the shop, "Why nobody
wouldn't believe what can be sold by penn'orths and twopenn'orths if you
go the right way to work. Look at whelks, for instance.
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