in her disposition to him, did not quite like having a brother
employed as a clerk in her husband's office. They therefore put
their heads together, and, as the Tudors had good family
connexions in England, a nomination in the Weights and Measures
was procured.

The nomination was procured; but when it was ascertained how very
short a way this went towards the attainment of the desired
object, and how much more difficult it was to obtain Mr.
Hardlines' approval than the Board's favour, young Tudor's
friends despaired, and recommended him to abandon the idea, as,
should he throw himself into the Thames, he might perhaps fall
beyond the reach of the waterman's hook. Alaric himself, however,
had no such fears. He could not bring himself to conceive that he
could fail in being fit for a clerkship in a public office, and
the result of his examination proved at any rate that he had been
right to try.

The close of his first year's life in London found him living in
lodgings with Henry Norman. At that time Norman's income was
nearly three times as good as his own. To say that Tudor selected
his companion because of his income would be to ascribe unjustly
to him vile motives and a mean instinct. He had not done so. The
two young men had been thrown, together by circumstances. They
worked at the same desk, liked each other's society, and each
being alone in the world, thereby not unnaturally came together.
But it may probably be said that had Norman been as poor as
Tudor, Tudor might probably have shrunk from rowing in the same
boat with him.