I Tiresias, old man with wrinkled dugs Perceived the scene, and foretold the restö I too awaited the expected guest. He, the young man carbuncular, arrives, A small house agent's clerk, with one bold stare, One of the low on whom assurance sits As a silk hat on a Bradford millionaire.

-Eliot,T(homas) S(tearns)
  The Waste Land, pt.3,'The Fire Sermon'.

He'll make a fine president. He was the best clerk who ever served under me.

-MacArthur, Douglas
  On Dwight D Eisenhower's election as President. In news summaries, 31 Dec.

   The third sister, Morgan le Fey, was put to scole in a nonnery, and ther she lerned so moche that she was a grete clerke of nygromancye.

-Malory, SirThomas   d.1471
c.1470  Morte d'Arthur, bk.1, ch.2.

True to oneself! Which self? Which of my many†hundreds of selves?† Therearemomentswhen I feel I am nothing but the small clerk of some hotel without a proprietor, who has all hisworkcutoutto enter the names and hand the keys to the wilful guests.

-Beauchamp
  Journal entry,  Apr.

[To] have an unmannerly fat clerk ask the consent of every butcher in the parish to join John Absolute and Lydia Languish, spinster.Oh that I should live to hear myself called spinster!

-Sheridan, Richard Brinsley
  Lydia Languish, who had hoped for a romantic elopement. The Rivals, act 5, sc.1.