If each of us had been the only lodger there, the place would have been undoubtedly respectable, but with all the rest there, we each of us considered the society rather "mixed." As to the economical, we were all agreed on that point.

The place was fearfully and wonderfully economical! By the time my first week in London was ended I had shaken down fairly well, both to my work at Merrett, Barnacle, and Company's and my quarters at Mrs Nash's.

I still found the fellowship of Messrs.
Doubleday and Wallop and Crow rather distracting, and more than once envied Jack his berth among the Imports where, as a rule, silence reigned supreme.

And yet I could hardly bring myself to dislike my fellow-clerks, who, all of them, as far as I had found out, were good- natured, and certainly very entertaining, and who, when they perceived that I was amused by their proceedings, relaxed a good deal in their attitude to me.
I gradually came to be on talking, if not on chaffing terms with several of the fellows, and found myself, I never exactly knew how, installed in the position, lately vacated by Mr Crow, of messenger and confidential commission agent to the company.

Most of my twenty minutes in the middle of the day was thus taken up in buying articles of comfort or decoration for one and another of my seniors, or else changing books at the library, taking messages to other clerks in other offices, and otherwise laying myself out for the general good--a self-denial which brought me more kicks than halfpence, but which, all the same, served to establish my footing as a regular member of the Export fraternity at Merrett, Barnacle, and Company's.
Smith, I discovered, was let in for something of the same work with the Imports, but to a much smaller extent.