ten in the morning
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 remained for a couple of hours , during which every clerk in the establishment came to have a look at him . At last he was ushered into the Secretary 's room . ` Ah ! '