The spirit who guards the entrance into this elysium is by no
means so difficult to deal with as Mr. Hardlines. And it was well
that it was so some few years since for young Charley Tudor, a
cousin of our friend Alaric; for Charley Tudor could never have
passed muster at the Weights and Measures. Charles Tudor, the
third of the three clerks alluded to in our title-page, is the
son of a clergyman, who has a moderate living on the Welsh
border, in Shropshire. Had he known to what sort of work he was
sending his son, he might probably have hesitated before he
accepted for him a situation in the Internal Navigation Office.
He was, however, too happy in getting it to make many inquiries
as to its nature. We none of us like to look a gift-horse in the
mouth. Old Mr. Tudor knew that a clerkship in the Civil Service
meant, or should mean, a respectable maintenance for life, and
having many young Tudors to maintain himself, he was only too
glad to find one of them provided for.

Charley Tudor was some few years younger than his cousin Alaric
when he came up to town, and Alaric had at that time some three
or four years' experience of London life. The examination at the
Internal Navigation was certainly not to be so much dreaded as
that at the Weights and Measures; but still there was an
examination; and Charley, who had not been the most diligent of
schoolboys, approached it with great dread after a preparatory
evening passed with the assistance of his cousin and Mr. Norman.

Exactly at ten in the morning he walked into the lobby of his
future workshop, and found no one yet there but two aged seedy
messengers. He was shown into a waiting-room, and there he