o had houses of their own to maintain.
Before I could feed my children I must help to pay for and cook the
dinner of the folk who lived on the dividends of railways and omnibus
companies. On the way to my office the tailor took toll of me by
forcing me to wear a garb which I detested, simply because I dared wear
no other garb. I could not even drink plain water but that some one
was the richer. I was the common gull of the thing called convention.
I was plucked to the skin, and if my skin had been worth turning into
leather, some one would have put in a claim to that. Even for my skin,
poor asset as it was, some one did wait, when it had ceased to be of
use to me, for London cemeteries declare dividends upon the dead. My
case reminded me of an old gentleman I once knew, who wore so many
coats, waistcoats, and shirts to keep warmth in a body of singular
attenuation, that it was commonly said that by the time James Smith
undressed at night there was very little James Smith that was
discoverable. Certainly by the time London had done wringing gold out
of me there was very little gold left that was my own.

There was, however, one kind of comfort to be deduced from these
reflections; if I was not nearly so well off as I appeared to be, I had
all the less to lose. Rightly considered it would not be 250 pounds
per annum that I should lose by leaving London, for I had never
possessed that sum, I calculated my real loss at something nearer 150
pounds, and this seemed not so terrible a thing. I had my forty pounds
a year for certain. I had the small earnings of my pen, and with
abundant time upon my hands I saw every reason why these should be
increased. Could I face a new kind of life upon an income of seventy
pounds per annum? Ah, how anxiously that problem was debated with my
wife, many a night when the children were abed! The natural
conservatism of woman had a great deal to say in these debates. 'It
was all very well,' said my wife, 'to do these little sums on paper,
but suppose the facts did not correspond? Suppose I found no cottage
at twenty pounds a year, and no decent school at sixpence a week? Then
the world was full of writers for the press.' (I frowned.) 'Not of
course like you, not half so good,' she added with a smile, 'but how do
you know that you will succeed? Show me a fixed income of 100 pounds a
year, and I would chance it, for I can live simply enough,' she would
say, 'and am as fond of lib