It was at the beginning of the second day at the Blue Boar that I
counted over my money, and was rather startled to discover that
expenditure in pennies can mount up quite rapidly.
In those days pennies were comparatively infrequent, almost
negligible, in Australia; the threepenny-bit representing for most
purposes the lowest price asked for anything. (It still is a coin more
generally used in Australia than anywhere else, I think.) Now, during
my first day or so in London I was so struck by the number of things
one could do and get for a penny, that it seemed I was really spending
hardly anything. I covered enormous distances on the tops of
omnibuses, and talked a great deal with their purple-faced drivers,
most of whom wore tall hats, and carried nosegays in their coats. When
beggars and crossing-sweepers asked, I gave, unhesitatingly, in the
Australian fashion, as one gives matches when asked for them. I gave
only pennies; and now was startled to find what a comparatively large
sum can be disbursed in a day or so, in single pennies, upon 'bus
fares, newspapers, charity, and the like.
The two men to whom my only letters of introduction were addressed
were both out of town: one in Algiers, the other, I gathered, on the
Riviera. I suppose most people in London have never reflected on the
oddity of the position of that person in their midst who does not know
one solitary soul in the entire vast city. And yet, there must always
be hundreds in that position. There was a time when I had serious
thoughts of asking a policeman to recommend to me the cheapest quarter
in which one might obtain a lodging, for I had already conceived a
great admiration for the uniformed wardens of London's streets.
I studied the newspaper advertisements under the heading 'Apartments.'
But some instinct told me these did not refer to London's cheapest
lodgings, and I felt a most urgent need for economy in the handling of
my small hoard. These few pounds must support me, I thought, until I
could cut out a niche for myself, here where there seemed hardly room
for the feet of the existing inhabitants. Already in quite a vague way
I had become conscious of the shadow of that dread presence whose
existence colours the outlook of millions in England. I wonder if the
consciousness had begun to affect my expression!
My choice of a locality was made eventually upon ridiculously
inadequate grounds. In a newspaper article dealing with charitable
work, I came upon some such words as these: 'Life is supported upon an
astoundingly small outlay of money among the poor householders, and
even poorer lodgers, in these streets opening out of the Seven Sisters
Road in the district lying between Stoke Newington and South
Tottenham. Here are families whose weekly rental is far less than many
a man spends on his solitary dinner in club or restaurant,' etc.
'This appears to be the sort of place for me,' I told myself.
Remembering certain green omnibuses that bore the name of Stoke
Newington, I descended from one of them an hour later outside a
hostelry called the Weavers' Arms. (Transatlantic slang has dubbed
these places 'gin-mills'; a telling name, I think.)
One of my difficulties was that I had no clear idea what amount would
be considered cheap in London, by way of rent for a single room. The
one thing clear in my mind was that I must, if possible, find the
cheapest. I had already gathered from chance talk, on board the
_Orimba_ and elsewhere, that the Australian 'board and lodging' system
was not much used in London, save in strata which would be above my
means. The cheaper way, I gathered, was to pay so much for a room and
'attendance,' which should include the preparation of one's own food.
The cheapest method of all, I had heard, and the method I meant to
adopt, was to rent a furnished room, but without 'attendance,' and to
provide meals for myself in the room or outside.
By this time the thing most desirable in my eyes was the possession of
a room of my own. I wanted badly to be able to shut myself in with my
luggage; to secure privacy, and be able to think, without the
distracting consciousness of my small capital melting away from me at
an unnecessary and alarmingly rapid pace. Anything equivalent to the
comparative refinement, quietness, cleanliness, and spacious outlook
of my North Shore quarters was evidently quite out of the question;
and would have been, as a matter of fact, even at double their cost in
Sydney.
Late that afternoon a cab conveyed me with my baggage to No. 27 Mellor
Street, a small thoroughfare leading out of the Seven Sisters Road.
Here I had secured a barely furnished top-floor room, with a tiny
oil-stove in it, for 4s. 6d. per week. I paid a week's rent in advance,
and, having deposited my bags there, I sallied forth into the Seven
Sisters Road, with the room key in my pocket, to make domestic
purchases. Billy cans were not available, but I bought a tin kettle
for my oil-stove, some tea, a very little simple crockery and cutlery,
some wholemeal brown bread (which I had heard was the most nutritious
variety), butter, and cheese. Also some lamp oil, for the simple
furniture of my room included, in addition to its oil-stove, a blue
china lamp with pink and silver flowers upon its sides. Most of these
things I ordered in one shop, and then, carrying one or two other
purchases, hurried back to my room to be ready for the shop-boy who
was to deliver the remainder.
Over the little meal that I presently prepared, with the aid of the
oil-stove, my spirits, which had fallen steadily during the hunt for a
room, brightened considerably. Pipe in mouth I made some alterations
in the disposition of my furniture, placing the little table nearer to
the window, and shifting the bed to give me a glimpse of sky when I
should be occupying it. The oil-stove made a regrettable stench I
found, and the lamp appeared to suffer from some nervous affection
which made its flame jump spasmodically at intervals. The mattress on
my bed was extraordinarily diversified in contour by little mountain
ranges, kopjes which could not be induced to amalgamate with its
general plan. Also, I was not so much alone in my sanctum as I had
hoped to be. There were other forms of life, whose company I do not
think I ever entirely evaded during my whole period as a lodger of the
poorest grade in London.
But for the time these trifles did not greatly trouble me. Drunken
brawls which occurred later in the evening, immediately under my
window, were a nuisance. But it was all new; my health of mind and
body was sound and unstrained; and I presently went to bed rather well
pleased with myself, after an hour spent in considering and adding to
sundry notes I had accumulated, for articles and sketches presently to
be written.
My hope was to be able to win a place in London journalism without
having any sort of an appointment. The very phrase 'free-lance'
appealed to my sense of the romantic. 'All the clever fellows are
free-lances, you know, in the Old Country.' I recalled many such
statements made to me in Sydney. Prudence might have led me to offer
myself for a post of some kind, if the editor to whom my letter of
introduction was addressed had been visible. But he was not in London;
and, in my heart, I was rather glad. It should be as a free agent, an
unknown adventurer in Grub Street, that I would win my journalistic
and literary spurs in the Old World. Other men had succeeded....
Musing in this hopeful vein I fell asleep, with never a hint of a
presentiment of what did actually lie before me. I suppose the
chiefest boon that mortals enjoy is just that negative blessing: their
total inability to see even so far into the future as to-morrow
morning.