get
any work to do and his wife died, so he pawned his clothes and bought a
revolver; but he made a mess of it, he only shot out an eye and he got all
right. And then, if you please, with an eye gone and a piece of his face
blow away, he came to the conclusion that the world wasn't such a bad
place after all, and he lived happily ever afterwards. Thing I've always
noticed, people don't commit suicide for love, as you'd expect, that's
just a fancy of novelists; they commit suicide because they haven't got
any money. I wonder why that is."

"I suppose money's more important than love," suggested Philip.

Money was in any case occupying Philip's thoughts a good deal just then.
He discovered the little truth there was in the airy saying which himself
had repeated, that two could live as cheaply as one, and his expenses were
beginning to worry him. Mildred was not a good manager, and it cost them
as much to live as if they had eaten in restaurants; the child needed
clothes, and Mildred boots, an umbrella, and other small things which it
was impossible for her to do without. When they returned from Brighton she
had announced her intention of getting a job, but she took no definite
steps, and presently a bad cold laid her up for a fortnight. When she was
well she answered one or two advertisements, but nothing came of it:
either she arrived too late and the vacant place was filled, or the work
was more than she felt strong enough to do. Once she got an offer, but the
wages were only fourteen shillings a week, and she thought she was worth
more than that.

"It's no good letting oneself be put upon," she remarked. "People don't
respect you if you let yourself go too cheap."

"I don't think fourteen shillings is so bad," answered Philip, drily.

He could not help thinking how useful it would be towards the expenses of
the household, and Mildred was already beginning to hint that she did not
get a place because she had not got a decent dress to interview employers
in. He gave her the dress, and she made one or two more attempts, but
Philip came to the conclusion that they were not serious. She did not want
to work. The only way he knew to make money was on the Stock Exchange, and
he was very anxious to repeat the lucky experiment of the summer; but war
had broken out with the Transvaal and nothing was doing in South Africans.
Macalister told him that Redvers Buller would march into Pretoria in a
month and then everything woul