for fourteen
years.

"There's no help for it," I murmured. "I must get rid of the remainder
of my lease, sell my books and pictures and other more or less expensive
household goods, dismiss Rogers and Bingley, and go and live on thirty
shillings a week in a Bloomsbury boarding-house. I think," I continued,
regarding myself in the Queen Anne mirror over the mantelpiece, "I think
that it will better harmonise with my fallen fortunes if I refrain from
waxing the ends of my moustache. There ought to be a modest droop about
the moustache of a tax-collector."

The next morning I gave my servants a months' notice. Rogers, who
had been with me for many years, behaved in the correctest manner. He
neither offered to lend me his modest savings nor to work for me for
no wages. He expressed his deep regret at leaving my service and his
confidence that I would give him a good character. Bingley wept after
the way of women. There was also a shadowy housemaidy young person in
a cap who used to make meteoric appearances and whom I left to the
diplomacy of Bingley. These dismal rites performed, I put my chambers
into the hands of a house agent and interviewed a firm of auctioneers
with reference to the sale. It was all exceedingly unpleasant. The agent
was so anxious to let my chambers, the auctioneer so delighted at the
chance of selling my effects, that I felt myself forthwith turned neck
and crop out of doors. It was a bright morning in early spring, with a
satirical touch of hope in the air. London, no longer to be my London,
maintained its hostile attitude to me. If any one had prophesied that I
should be a stranger in Piccadilly, I should have laughed aloud. Yet I
was.

Walking moodily up Saint James's street I met the omniscient and
expansive Renniker. He gave me a curt nod and a "How d'ye do?" and
passed on. I felt savagely disposed to slash his jaunty silk hat
off with my walking-stick. A few months before he would have rushed
effusively into my arms and bedaubed me with miscellaneous inaccuracies
of information. At first I was furiously indignant. Then I laughed, and
swinging my stick, nearly wreaked my vengeance on a harmless elderly
gentleman.

It was my first experience of social ostracism. Although I curled a
contumelious lip, I smarted under the indignity. It was all very well
to say proudly "_io son' io_"; but _io_ used to be a person of some
importance who was not cavalierly "how d'ye do'd" by creatures like
Rennik