He reached them in the evening; and the landlady , a funny little old woman with a shrivelled body and a deeply wrinkled face, had prepared high tea for him.
Most of the sitting-room was taken up by the sideboard and a square table; against one wall was a sofa covered with horsehair, and by the fireplace an arm-chair to match: there was a white antimacassar over the back of it, and on the seat, because the springs were broken, a hard cushion.
After having his tea,he unpacked and arranged his books, then he sat down and tried to read; but he was depressed . The silence in the street made him slightly uncomfortable, and he felt very much alone.
Next day he got up early. He put on his tail-coat and the tall hat which he had worn at school; but it was very shabby, and he made up his mind to stop at the Stores on his way to the office and buy a new one.
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6
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买好帽子,他发觉时间还早,便沿着河滨信步往前走。
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6
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When he had done this he found himself in plenty of time and so walked along the Strand .
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7
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赫伯特·卡特先生公司的事务所坐落在法院街附近的一条小街上,菲利普不得不三番五次地向行人问路。
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7
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The office of Messrs. Herbert Carter & Co. was in a little street off Chancery Lane, and he had to ask his way two or three times.
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8
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他发觉过往行人老是在瞅自己,有一回他特地摘下帽子,看看是不是自己一时疏忽把标签留在上面了。
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8
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He felt that people were staring at him a great deal, and once he took off his hat to see whether by chance the label had been left on.
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9
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到了事务所,他举手叩门,里面没人应声。他看了看表,发现刚刚九点半,心想自己来得太早了点。
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9
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When he arrived he knocked at the door; but no one answered, and looking at his watch he found it was barely half past nine; he supposed he was too early.
He went away and ten minutes later returned to find an office-boy, with a long nose, pimply face, and a Scotch accent, opening the door. Philip asked for Mr. Herbert Carter. He had not come yet.
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11
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"他什么时候来这儿?""十点到十点半之间。""我还是在这儿等吧?"菲利普说。
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11
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‘When will he be here?’‘Between ten and half past.’‘I’d better wait,’ said Philip.
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12
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"您有事吗?"那个勤工问。
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12
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‘What are you wanting?’ asked the office-boy.
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13
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菲利普有点局促不安,他想用调侃的口吻来掩饰内心的慌张。"嗯,如果您不反对的话,本人将在贵所工作。"
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13
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Philip was nervous, but tried to hide the fact by a jocose manner.‘Well, I’m going to work here if you have no objection.’
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14
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"哦,您是新来的练习生?请进来吧。古德沃西先生一会儿就到。"
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14
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‘Oh, you’re the new articled clerk? You’d better come in. Mr. Goodworthy’ll be here in a while.’
Philip walked in, and as he did so saw the office-boy—he was about the same age as Philip and called himself a junior clerk—look at his foot. He flushed and, sitting down, hid it behind the other.
He looked round the room. It was dark and very dingy . It was lit by a skylight. There were three rows of desks in it and against them high stools. Over the chimney-piece was a dirty engraving of a prize-fight.
Presently a clerk came in and then another; they glanced at Philip and in an undertone asked the office-boy (Philip found his name was Macdougal) who he was. A whistle blew, and Macdougal got up.
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18
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"古德沃西先生来了,他是这儿的主管。要不要我去对他说您来了。"
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18
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‘Mr. Goodworthy’s come. He’s the managing clerk. Shall I tell him you’re here?’
Philip followed him across the passage and was shown into a room, small and barely furnished, in which a little, thin man was standing with his back to the fireplace. He was much below the middle height, but his large head, which seemed to hang loosely on his body, gave him an odd ungainliness.
His features were wide and flattened , and he had prominent, pale eyes; his thin hair was sandy; he wore whiskers that grew unevenly on his face, and in places where you would have expected the hair to grow thickly there was no hair at all. His skin was pasty and yellow.
He held out his hand to Philip, and when he smiled showed badly decayed teeth. He spoke with a patronising and at the same time a timid air, as though he sought to assume an importance which he did not feel.
He said he hoped Philip would like the work; there was a good deal of drudgery about it, but when you got used to it, it was interesting; and one made money, that was the chief thing, wasn’t it? He laughed with his odd mixture of superiority and shyness.
‘Mr. Carter will be here presently,’ he said. ‘He’s a little late on Monday mornings sometimes. I’ll call you when he comes. In the meantime I must give you something to do. Do you know anything about book-keeping or accounts?’
‘I didn’t suppose you would. They don’t teach you things at school that are much use in business, I’m afraid.’ He considered for a moment. ‘I think I can find you something to do.’
He went into the next room and after a little while came out with a large cardboard box. It contained a vast number of letters in great disorder , and he told Philip to sort them out and arrange them alphabetically according to the names of the writers.
‘I’ll take you to the room in which the articled clerk generally sits. There’s a very nice fellow in it. His name is Watson. He’s a son of Watson, Crag, and Thompson—you know—the brewers. He’s spending a year with us to learn business.’
Mr. Goodworthy led Philip through the dingy office, where now six or eight clerks were working, into a narrow room behind. It had been made into a separate apartment by a glass partition, and here they found Watson sitting back in a chair, reading The Sportsman.
He was a large, stout young man, elegantly dressed, and he looked up as Mr. Goodworthy entered. He asserted his position by calling the managing clerk Goodworthy.
The managing clerk objected to the familiarity, and pointedly called him Mr. Watson, but Watson, instead of seeing that it was a rebuke , accepted the title as a tribute to his gentlemanliness.
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34
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"我看他们已把里哥雷托撤下来了,"等到只剩下他们两人时,他对菲利普说。
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34
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‘I see they’ve scratched Rigoletto,’ he said to Philip, as soon as they were left alone.
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35
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"是吗?"菲利普应了一声,他对马赛一无所知。
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35
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‘Have they?’ said Philip, who knew nothing about horse-racing.
He looked with awe upon Watson’s beautiful clothes. His tail-coat fitted him perfectly , and there was a valuable pin artfully stuck in the middle of an enormous tie. On the chimney-piece rested his tall hat; it was saucy and bell-shaped and shiny. Philip felt himself very shabby.
Watson began to talk of hunting—it was such an infernal bore having to waste one’s time in an infernal office, he would only be able to hunt on Saturdays—and shooting: he had ripping invitations all over the country and of course he had to refuse them.
It was infernal luck, but he wasn’t going to put up with it long; he was only in this internal hole for a year, and then he was going into the business, and he would hunt four days a week and get all the shooting there was.
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39
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"你要呆在这儿捱上五个年头,是吗?"他一边说,一边伸出条手臂朝小房间四下一挥。
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39
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‘You’ve got five years of it, haven’t you?’ he said, waving his arm round the tiny room.