24 THE LIFE OF PHILIP HENRY GOSSE. 



boy, short for his age, with a profusion of straight dark- 

 brown hair on his head, and a dark complexion which he 

 inherited from his father. He describes himself at that age 

 as " a burly lad, tolerably educated, pretty well read, fairly 

 well behaved, habitually truthful, modest, obedient, timid, 

 shy, studious, ingenuous." It was time for him to begin 

 bread-winning, but what was to be done with him ? Poole 

 was a town of merchants. His brother William had 

 entered life in a merchant's counting-house ; why should 

 not he ? His parents had kind and influential friends, and 

 one of them spoke to Mr. Garland, the much-respected 

 head of a large mercantile house in the Newfoundland trade. 

 There was a junior place vacant in his Poole business, and 

 he sent permission for Philip to call on him. Accordingly, 

 Mrs. Gosse took him to the office, where the kind and genial 

 old gentleman readily offered to engage the boy as a junior 

 clerk, at a salary of £20 per annum to begin with. This, 

 of course, would not pay for his food, yet it was better than 

 lying idle, and there were hopes that it might lead to some- 

 thing better. The proposal was thankfully accepted. 



The counting-house of Messrs. George Garland and 

 Sons was a spacious old-fashioned apartment, adapted from 

 a sort of corridor in the rambling family mansion. The 

 whole of one side, except an area at the doors which was 

 shut off by a rail, was occupied by three ample desks, which 

 looked down into the back-yard. The first of these desks 

 was occupied by Mr. Edward Lisby, chief clerk, a spruce 

 little man of about twenty- three. The second was assigned 

 to young Gosse, and the third remained untenanted. Each 

 clerk was ensconced in a den, since each several desk was 

 surrounded by a dark wainscot wall, around the summit of 

 which ran a set of turned rails. Mr. Lisby was very silent ; 

 the new clerk was very shy ; and a portentous hush, broken 

 only by the squeaking of pens, was accustomed to reign in 



