the publisher, 'what do you want the money for?'

'Merely to live on,' I replied; 'it is very difficult to live in this
town without money.'

'How much money did you bring with you to town?' demanded the publisher.

'Some twenty or thirty pounds,' I replied.

'And you have spent it already?'

'No,' said I, 'not entirely; but it is fast disappearing.'

'Sir,' said the publisher, 'I believe you to be extravagant; yes, sir,
extravagant!'

'On what grounds do you suppose me to be so?'

'Sir,' said the publisher, 'you eat meat.'

'Yes,' said I, 'I eat meat sometimes; what should I eat?'

'Bread, sir,' said the publisher; 'bread and cheese.'

'So I do, sir, when I am disposed to indulge; but I cannot often afford
it--it is very expensive to dine on bread and cheese, especially when one
is fond of cheese, as I am. My last bread and cheese dinner cost me
fourteenpence. There is drink, sir; with bread and cheese one must drink
porter, sir.'

'Then, sir, eat bread--bread alone. As good men as yourself have eaten
bread alone; they have been glad to get it, sir. If with bread and
cheese you must drink porter, sir, with bread alone you can, perhaps,
drink water, sir.'

However, I got paid at last for my writings in the Review, not, it is
true, in the current coin of the realm, but in certain bills; there were
two of them, one payable at twelve, and the other at eighteen months
after date. It was a long time before I could turn these bills to any
account; at last I found a person who, at a discount of only thirty per
cent, consented to cash them; not, however, without sundry grimaces, and,
what was still more galling, holding, more than once, the unfortunate
papers high in air between his forefinger and thumb. So ill, indeed, did
I like this last action, that I felt much inclined to snatch them away. I
restrained myself, however, for I remembered that it was very difficult
to live without money, and that, if the present person did not discount
the bills, I should probably find no one else that would.

But if the treatment which I had experienced from the publisher, previous
to making this demand upon him, was difficult to bear, that which I
subsequently underwent was far more so: his great delight seemed to
consist in causing me misery and mortification; if, on former occasions,
he was continually sending me in quest of lives and trials difficult to
find, he now was continually demanding lives and trials which