My new home was a long way from the centre of London but it was becoming essential to find

a job, so finally I spent a whole morning getting to town and putting my name down to be considered by London Transport for a job on the tube. They were looking for guards, not drivers. This suited me. I couldn't drive a car but thought that I could probably guard a train, and perhaps continue to write my poems between stations. The writers Keats and Chekhov had been doctors. T. S. Eliot had worked in a bank and Wallace Stevens for an insurance company. I would be a tube guard. I could see myself being cheerful, useful, a good man in a crisis. Obviously I would be overqualified but I was willing to forget about that in return for a steady income and travel privileges those being particularly welcome to someone living a long way from the city centre.

The next day I sat down, with almost a hundred other candidates, for the intelligence test, I must have done all right because after half an hour's wait I was sent into another room for a psychological test. This time there were only about fifty candidates. The examiner sat at a desk. You were signaled forward to occupy the seat opposite him when the previous occupant had been dismissed, after a greater or shorter time. Obviously the long interviews were the more successful ones. Some of the interviews were as short as five minutes. Mine was the only one that lasted a minute and a half.

I can remember the questions now: "Why did you leave your last job？" "Why did you leave your job before that？" "And the one before that？" I can't recall my answers, except that they were short at first and grew progressively shorter. His closing statement, I thought, revealed a lack of sensitivity which helped to explain why as a psychologist, he had risen no higher than the underground railway. "You have failed the psychological test and we are unable to offer you a position."

Failing to get that job was my low point. Or so I thought, believing that work was easy. Actually, such jobs--being a postman is another one I still desire--demand exactly the sort of elementary yet responsible awareness that the habitual dreamer is least qualified to give. But I was still far short of full self-understanding. I was also short of cash.

The writer applied for the job because ______

A．he could no longer afford to live without one

B．he wanted to work in the centre of London

C．he had received suitable training

D．he was not interested in any other available job