VI

After my second year in London I became approximately wealthy. Early

in the third year, at all events, I earned as much as five guineas in

a single month, and ate meat almost every day; in other words I began

to earn pretty nearly one-third as much as I had earned some years

previously in Sydney. I now bought books, and no longer always, as

before, at the cost of a meal or so. Holywell Street was a great

delight to me, and I never quite comprehended how Londoners could

bring themselves to let it go. I doubt if Fleet Street raised a single

protest, and yet-- Well, it was surprising.

I wrote rather less in this period, and used more method in my attacks

upon the editors. I even succeeded in actually interviewing one or two

of them, including the gentleman to whom I carried a note of

introduction from a colleague he had never met. But I do not think I

gained anything by these interviews. I might possibly have done so had

they come earlier, while yet the freedom of easier days and of

sunshine was in my veins. But my mean street period had affected me

materially. It had made me morbidly self-conscious, and suspiciously

alive to the least hint of patronage or brusqueness.

It is true I gave hours to the penetration of editorial sanctums; but

in nearly every case my one desire, when I reached them, was to escape

from them quickly without humiliation. In a busy man's very natural

dislike of interruption, or anxious glance toward his clock, I saw

contempt for my obscurity and suspicion of my poverty. And, after all,

I had nothing to say to these gentlemen, save to beg them to read the

effusions I pressed upon them; an appeal they would far rather receive

on half a sheet of notepaper. As to impressing my personality upon

them in any way, as I say, my uneasy thoughts in their presence were

usually confined to the problem of how best I might escape without

actual discredit.

Once, I remember, in a very lean month, I chanced to see one of the

Olympians passing with god-like nonchalance into the restaurant of a

well-known hotel. On the instant, and without giving myself time for

reflection, I followed him down the glittering vestibule, and into a

palatial dining-hall. The hour was something between one and two

o'clock, and a minute before I had been thoughtfully weighing the

relative merits of an immediate allowance of sausages and mashed

potatoes for fivepence, or a couple of stale buns for one penny, to be

followed at nightfall by a real banquet--seven-pennyworth of honest

beef and vegetables. Now, with a trifle over four shillings in my

pocket, I was, to outward seeming, carelessly scanning a menu, in

which no single dish, not even the soup, seemed to cost less than

about three times the price of one of my best dinners.

But at the next table sat a London editor. I was free to contemplate

him. Was not that feast enough for such as I? Evidently I thought it

was, for I told the waiter with an elaborate assumption of boredom

that I did not feel like eating much, but would see what I could make

of a little of the soup St. Germain. I wondered often if the man

noticed the remarkable manner in which the crisp French rolls on that

table disappeared, while I toyed languidly with my soup. I did not

dare to ask for more rolls when I had made an end of the four or five

that were on the table; but I could have eaten a dozen of them without

much difficulty.

'No, thank you, I think I shall be better without anything to-day,' I

said to the waiter who drew my attention to a sumptuous volume which I

had already discovered to be the wine-list. There was a delicate

suggestion in my tone (I hoped) that occasional abstinence from wine,

say, at luncheon had been found beneficial for my gout. Certainly, if

he counted his rolls, the man could hardly have suspected me of a

diabetic tendency.

All this time I studied the profile of the editor, while he leisurely

discussed, perhaps, half a sovereign's worth of luncheon. I hoped--and

again feared--he might presently recognise me; but he only looked

blandly through me once or twice to more important objects beyond. And

just as I had concluded that it was not humanly possible to spend any

longer over one spoonful of practically cold soup, he rose, gracefully

disguised a yawn, and strolled away to an Elysian hall in which, no

doubt, liqueurs, coffee, and cigars of great price were dispensed.

This was not for me, of course.

They managed somehow to make my bill half a crown, and, as a trifling

mark of my esteem, I gave the waiter the price of two of my ordinary

dinners, for himself. I badly wanted to give him sixpence, but lacked

the requisite moral courage, though I do not suppose he would have

wasted a thought upon it either way, and if he had--but, as I say, I

gave him a shilling. After all I do not suppose the poor fellow earned

much more in a day than I earned in a week. And then (still with

prudent thought for my gouty tendency, no doubt) I loftily waved aside

all suggestions of coffee in the lounge, and made my way to the

street, with the air of one who found luncheon a rather annoying

interruption in his management of great affairs.

'Now if you had as much enterprise and resourcefulness as--as a

bandicoot,' I told myself, passing down the Thames Embankment, 'you

would have entered into conversation with A----, and by this time he

would be pressing you to write articles for him. Instead of that,

you'll have to content yourself with dry bread to-night and to-morrow,

my friend.'

But I did not altogether regret that bread and soup luncheon, after

all. It was an adventure of sorts, and quite a streak of colour in its

way, across the drab background of South Tottenham days.

There were times when the spirit of revolt filled my very soul, and

all life seemed black or red in my eyes. But I do not recall any day

of panic or suggested surrender. On one day of revolt, when I told

myself that this slum life in London was too horrible for a

self-respecting dingo, let alone a man, I buttoned up my coat and

walked with angry haste all the way to Epping Forest. In that noble

breathing-place I raged to and fro under trees and through scrub,

delighting in the prickly caress of brambles, and pausing in

breathless ecstasy to watch rabbits at play in a dim, leafy glade.

Fully twelve miles I must have walked, and then, healed and tamed, but

somewhat faint from unwonted exercise and wonted lack of good food, I

sat down in a little arbour and wolfishly devoured just as much as I

could get in the form of a ninepenny tea. I fear there can have been

no margin of profit for the good woman who served me.

At that period my digestive faculties still were holding up

miraculously, or my sufferings on the homeward tramp would have been

acute. As a fact I reached home in rare spirits, and almost--so cheery

was I--cancelled the notice I had given that morning of my intention

to vacate the current garret. But the smell of the house smiting my

forest freshness as I stepped over the boards, jammed in its threshold

to keep crawling children in, saved me from that indiscretion. There

were fewer drunkards, less fighting, and not many more insects in that

house than in most of my places of residence; but the smell of it I

shall never, never forget. In that respect it was the vilest in a vile

series of slum dwellings, and many and many a time had caused me to

revile my naturally keen olfactory organs. I had endured it for almost

a month, and would suffer its unmanning horrors no more. Indeed, I

would suffer nothing like it again. Why should I? My earnings were

increasing. I would escape from the whole district, its miseries, its

smells, its infamies, and its thousand dehumanising degradations. I

would emigrate.

Yes, that tramp in Epping Forest was quite epoch-making. It came after

more than two years of struggle in London. I had made fully five

pounds in the past month. I had actually laid aside a couple of

sovereigns, and doubtless that salient fact emboldened me. Also, I had

had a number of quite meaty meals of late. But the wild stamping to

and fro under trees, the sight of the bonny, white-sterned rabbits at

play, the copious tea in a pleached arbour, the clean forest air--these

I am sure had been as a fiery stimulant to my drooping manhood.

I went to bed full of the most reckless resolves, and astonishingly

light-hearted.

In the morning, having feasted (as well as the prevailing smell

permitted) upon an apple, brown bread, and tea--butter was 'off' that

day, I remember--I set forth upon a prospecting tour, working westward

from my north-easterly abode, through Holloway, Finsbury, the Camden

Road, and such places, into the neighbourhood of Regent's Park. The

park, which was strange to me, pleased me greatly; as did also certain

minor streets in its neighbourhood, a mews which I found quaint and

quite rural in its suggestions, and sundry white houses with green

shutters which, for some reason, I remember I called 'discreet.' There

was nothing here that looked poor enough for me, but none the less I

inquired at one or two of the smaller houses whose windows held cards

indicating that rooms were to let in them.

At length, in a quiet and decent thoroughfare called Howard Street, I

happened upon Mrs. Pelly's house--No. 37. The girl who answered my

knock had a pleasant little face, and a soft, kindly tone in speaking.

I supposed she was not more than one-and-twenty, perhaps less. Her

mother was out, she said, but she would show me the only vacant room

they had. Indeed--with a little smile--she really did more for the

lodgers than her mother did.

The room was at the back of the house on the first floor, and there

was but one other floor above it. It had a French window, with a tiny

iron balcony, three feet by eighteen inches. The furnishings were

greatly superior to any I had had in London. There was actually a

little writing-table with drawers, and from the window one could see

distinctly the waving green tops of trees in the park. The rent was

eleven shillings. Whereat I sighed heavily. But the writing-table,

and, above all, the actual view of tree-tops in the distance! I sighed

again, and explained regretfully that I feared my limit was eight

shillings. Then the young woman sighed too, and mentioned, with

apparent irrelevance, that her mother might be in any moment now.

I had earned five pounds in the previous month. With reasonable care

my food need not cost more than seven to ten shillings a week. Of

course I had managed on considerably less. I knew very well that that

sort of semi-starvation was in every way bad; but, when I thought of

that quiet back room, the distant tree-tops, the absence of smells,

the fact that I had seen no filthy or drunken people in the

neighbourhood, the soft-spoken girl at my side--'By heavens! It's

worth it,' I said to myself.

And just then--we were in the narrow ground floor passage--the mother

arrived, bringing with her an unmistakable whiff of a public-house

bar. This stiffened my relaxing prudence considerably. I had no kindly

feeling left for taverns, especially where women were concerned. But,

by an odd chance, it happened that Mrs. Pelly was not only in a

talkative mood, but also in higher spirits than I ever saw her

afterwards. She insisted on reinspection of the room, a sufficiently

dangerous thing in itself for me. And then, standing beside its open

window, with arms folded over the place in which her waist once had

been, she avowed that she thought the room would suit me, and that I

should suit the room.

'There's a writing-table in it, an' all, ye see,' she said, having

received a hint as to my working habits.

There was indeed. I was little likely to forget it. It now seemed the

charge for the room was eleven shillings weekly, without 'attendance.'

But Mrs. Pelly had never been a woman to stick out over trifles, that

she hadn't; and, right or wrong, though she hoped she might never live

to rue the day, she would let the gentleman this room for nine

shillings a week, and include 'attendance' in that merely nominal

rate--'So there, Miss!' This, to her daughter Fanny, and in apparent

forgetfulness of my presence.

It was a thrilling moment for me, standing there with one hand on the

writing-table, my gaze fixed over the scantily covered top of Mrs.

Pelly's head--she wore no hat--upon the trees in the distance.

Prudence gabbled at me: 'You can't afford it. You must eat. You'll be

sold up, and serve you right.' But, of course, the table and the

window won. After all, had I not earned five pounds in the past month?

And, excepting boots, my outfit was still pretty good!

I could not wait for Monday. The window and the table pulled too hard.

So I installed myself at No. 37 on the Saturday afternoon, and thanked

God sincerely that I was no longer in a slum.