the back office for my
hat.

I nodded.

"What's he wasting on you?"

"Fifteen shillings a week," I whispered.

"Felt sure somehow that he'd take a liking to you," answered Minikin.
"Don't be ungrateful and look thin on it."

Outside the door I heard Mr. Lott's shrill voice demanding to know where
postage stamps were to be found.

"At the Post-office," was Minikin's reply.

The hours were long--in fact, we had no office hours; we got away
when we could, which was rarely before seven or eight--but my work was
interesting. It consisted of buying for unfortunate clients in India or
the Colonies anything they might happen to want, from a stage coach to
a pot of marmalade; packing it and shipping it across to them. Our
"commission" was anything they could be persuaded to pay over and above
the value of the article. I was not much interfered with. There was that
to be said for Lott & Co., so long as the work was done he was quite
content to leave one to one's own way of doing it. And hastening through
the busy streets, bargaining in shop or warehouse, bustling important in
and out the swarming docks, I often thanked my stars that I was not as
some poor two-pound-a-week clerk chained to a dreary desk.

The fifteen shillings a week was a tight fit; but that was not my
trouble. Reduce your denominator--you know the quotation. I found it no
philosophical cant, but a practical solution of life. My food cost me
on the average a shilling a day. If more of us limited our commissariat
bill to the same figure, there would be less dyspepsia abroad. Generally
I cooked my own meals in my own frying-pan; but occasionally I would
indulge myself with a more orthodox dinner at a cook shop, or tea with
hot buttered toast at a coffee-shop; and but for the greasy table-cloth
and the dirty-handed waiter, such would have been even greater
delights. The shilling a week for amusements afforded me at least one,
occasionally two, visits to the theatre, for in those days there were
Paradises where for sixpence one could be a god. Fourpence a week on
tobacco gave me half-a-dozen cigarettes a day; I have spent more on
smoke and derived less satisfaction. Dress was my greatest difficulty.
One anxiety in life the poor man is saved: he knows not the haunting
sense of debt. My tailor never dunned me. His principle was half-a-crown
down on receipt of order, the balance on the handing over of the goods.
No system is perfect; the method avoided frictio