would seem, however, that at every period of my life I have always
been feeding upon some one predominant plan, desire, or objective. For
many months prior to that afternoon at Potts Point, my adoration of
Mabel Foster had overshadowed all else, and made me most unusually
careless of other interests. This preoccupation having come to an
abrupt end was succeeded almost immediately by the fixed determination
to go to England as soon as I could acquire the sum of two hundred
pounds. Into the pursuit then of this sum of money I now plunged with
considerable vehemence.

As a matter of fact, I suppose the task of putting together a couple
of hundred pounds, in London say, would be a pretty considerable one
for a youngster without family or influence. It was not a hard one for
me, in Sydney. I might probably have possessed the amount at this very
time, but for my single period of extravagance--the time of devotion
to Miss Foster. Putting aside the vagaries of that period, I saved
money automatically. Mere living and journeying to and from the office
cost me less than a pound each week. My pleasures cost less than half
that amount all told; and as one outcome of my year's extravagance, I
was now handsomely provided for in the matter of clothes.

But I will not pretend that hoarding for the great adventure of going
to England did not involve some small sacrifices. It did. To take one
trifle now. I had formed a habit of dropping into a restaurant, Quong
Tart's by name, for a cup of afternoon tea each day; in the first
place because I had heard Mabel Foster speak of going there for the
same purpose with her friend Hester Prinsep. Abstention from this
dissipation now added a few weekly shillings to the great adventure
fund. To the same end I gave up cigarettes, confining myself to the
one foul old briar pipe. And there were other such minor abstinences,
all designed to increase the weight of the envelope I handed across
the bank counter each week.

The disadvantages of the habit of making life a consecutive series of
absorbing preoccupations are numerous. The practice narrows the sphere
of one's interests and activities, tends to introspective egoism, and
robs the present of much of its savour. But, now and again, it has its
compensations. Save for a single week-end of rather pensive moping,
the end of my love affair changed the colour of my outlook but very
little indeed. Its place was promptly filled, or very nearly filled,
by