re
for him, how much farther was he advanced upon the road of a happy
issue? It were presumptuous and absurd with only L150 a year to propose
marriage, and if he gave up living here and became a schoolmaster at
home, he knew that the post would be made conditional upon a willingness
to wait as many years for marriage as the wisdom of age decreed.
Besides, he could not take Pauline from Wychford and imprison her at Fox
Hall to dose little boys with Gregory's Powder or check the schedule of
their underclothing. The only justification for taking Pauline away from
the Rectory would be to make her immortal in poetry. Yet encouraging as
lately one or two epithets had certainly been, he was still far from
having written enough to fill even a very thin book; and really as he
came to review the past three months he could not say that he had done
much more or much better than in the days when Plashers Mead was
undiscovered. Time had lately gone by very fast, not merely on account
of the jolly days at the Rectory, but also because weeks that were
terminated by weekly bills seemed to be endowed with a double swiftness.

"I really must eat less meat," said Guy to himself. "It's ridiculous to
spend eleven shillings and sixpence every week on meat ... that's
roughly L30 a year. Why, it's absurd! And I don't eat it. Bother Miss
Peasey! What an appetite she has got."

He wondered if he could break through the barrier of his housekeeper's
deafness so far as to impress upon her the fact that she ate too much
meat. She spent too much, also, on small things like pepper and salt.
This reckless buying of pepper and salt made the grocer's bill an
eternal irritation, for it really seemed absurd to be spending all one's
money on pepper and salt. Yet people did live on L150 a year. Coleridge
had married with less than that and apparently had got on perfectly
well, or would have if he had not been foolish in other ways. How on
earth was it done? He really must try and find out how much, for
instance, Birdwood spent every week on the necessities of life. That was
the worst of Oxford ... one came down without the slightest idea of the
elementary facts of domestic economy. There had been a lot of soda
bought last week. He remembered seeing it in one of those horrid little
slippery tradesmen's books. Soda? What was it for? Vaguely Guy thought
it was used to soften water, but there were plenty of rain-tubs at
Plashers Mead, and soda must be an unjusti