d
excretes energy so rapidly that he cannot store it up and go to sleep
on his savings, and his harvests are usually so lean and disconnected
that the exercise of thrift is equally an impossibility and a mockery.
The life, therefore, of such a person is composed of a constant series
of adjustments and readjustments, and the stern ability wherewith
these changes are met and combated are more admirably ingenious than
the much-praised virtues of ants and bees to which they are constantly
directed as to exemplars.

Mrs. Cafferty had now less money than she had been used to, but she
had still the same rent to pay, the same number of children to feed,
and the same personal dignity to support as in her better days, and
her problem was to make up, by some means to which she was a stranger,
the money which had drifted beyond the reach of her husband. The
methods by which she could do this were very much restricted. Children
require an attention which occupies the entire of a mother's time,
and, consequently, she was prevented from seeking abroad any
mitigation of her hardships. The occupations which might be engaged in
at home were closed to her by mere overwhelming competition. The
number of women who are prepared to make ten million shirts for a
penny are already far in excess of the demand, and so, except by a
severe under-cutting such as a contract to make twenty million shirts
for a halfpenny, work of this description is very difficult to obtain.

Under these circumstances nothing remained for Mrs. Cafferty but to
take in a lodger. This is a form of co-operation much practiced among
the poorer people. The margin of direct profit accruing from such a
venture is very small, but this is compensated for by the extra
spending power achieved. A number of people pooling their money in
this way can buy to greater advantage and in a cheaper market than is
possible to the solitary purchaser, and a moderate toll for wear and
tear and usage, or, as it is usually put, for rent and attendance,
gives the small personal profit at which such services are reckoned.

Through the good offices of a neighboring shopkeeper Mrs. Cafferty
had secured a lodger, and, with the courage which is never separate
from despair, she had rented a small room beside her own. This room,
by an amazing economy of construction, contained a fireplace and a
window: it was about one square inch in diameter, and was undoubtedly
a fine room. The lodger was to enter i