precipitate, so venturesome was Ranny, that in a month from that
memorable Sunday he found himself married and established in a house. A
house that in twenty years' time would become his own.

That was incredible, if you like. Cowardly caution and niggardly
prudence had suggested rooms; two low-rented, unfurnished rooms such as
could be found almost anywhere in Wandsworth; whereas a house in
Wandsworth was impossible even if you sank as low as Jew's Row or Warple
Way. For the first two days of his engagement Ranny had devoted every
moment of his leisure to the drawing up and balancing of imaginary
household accounts; with the result that he wondered how he ever could
have regarded marriage as a formidable affair. Why, in the seven years
since he had begun to earn money he had been steadily putting money by.
Five pounds a year in the first three years, then ten, then twenty, and
a whole fifty in the year and a half since he had got his rise. With the
interest on his savings and his salary, his present income was not less
than a hundred and twenty-five pounds a year.

In the night watches he grappled like a man with the financial problem.
Scheme after scheme did Ranny throw on the paper from his seething
brain. In the fifth--no, the thoroughly revised and definitive seventh,
he made out that, by a trifling reduction in his personal expenditure,
housekeeping on the two-room system would leave him with a considerable
margin. (In the first rough draft--even in the second--he had allowed
absurdly too much for food and clothing.) But, mind you, that margin
existed solely and strictly on the two-room system.

And here Ranny's difficulties began; for neither Violet nor her parents
would hear of their living in two rooms. Violet, who had lived in one
room, said that living in two rooms was horrible, and Mrs. Usher said
that Violet was right. It was better for all parties to begin as you
meant to go on. Begin in hugger-mugger and you may end in it. But if he
gave Violet a home of her own that _was_ a home at the very start, she'd
soon settle down in it. He needn't worry about the hard work it meant.
The only thing that would keep Violet steadylike was downright hard
work. No; she didn't mean anything cruel. They could have a char once a
fortnight for a scrub-down and the heavy washing.

And Ranny began all over again and made out another set of accounts on
the house basis and allowing for the char.

Impossible; even in Jew's