betook himself to the streets, and mingled with the crowd which thronged
them.

Although a man may lose a sense of his own importance when he is a mere
unit among a busy throng, all utterly regardless of him, it by no means
follows that he can dispossess himself, with equal facility, of a very
strong sense of the importance and magnitude of his cares. The unhappy
state of his own affairs was the one idea which occupied the brain of
Nicholas, walk as fast as he would; and when he tried to dislodge it by
speculating on the situation and prospects of the people who surrounded
him, he caught himself, in a few seconds, contrasting their condition
with his own, and gliding almost imperceptibly back into his old train
of thought again.

Occupied in these reflections, as he was making his way along one of the
great public thoroughfares of London, he chanced to raise his eyes to
a blue board, whereon was inscribed, in characters of gold, 'General
Agency Office; for places and situations of all kinds inquire within.'
It was a shop-front, fitted up with a gauze blind and an inner door;
and in the window hung a long and tempting array of written placards,
announcing vacant places of every grade, from a secretary's to a
foot-boy's.

Nicholas halted, instinctively, before this temple of promise, and ran
his eye over the capital-text openings in life which were so profusely
displayed. When he had completed his survey he walked on a little way,
and then back, and then on again; at length, after pausing irresolutely
several times before the door of the General Agency Office, he made up
his mind, and stepped in.