top of Mrs.
Pelly's head--she wore no hat--upon the trees in the distance.
Prudence gabbled at me: 'You can't afford it. You must eat. You'll be
sold up, and serve you right.' But, of course, the table and the
window won. After all, had I not earned five pounds in the past month?
And, excepting boots, my outfit was still pretty good!

I could not wait for Monday. The window and the table pulled too hard.
So I installed myself at No. 37 on the Saturday afternoon, and thanked
God sincerely that I was no longer in a slum.

VII

On fine mornings I used to leave door and window blocked open in my
room, and take half an hour's walk in the park before breakfast. The
weather was sometimes unkind, of course, but Fanny never, and she
would neglect the rooms of other lodgers in order to hasten the
straightening of mine. The other lodgers were all folk whose business
took them away from Howard Street as soon as breakfast was dispatched,
and kept them away till evening.

It often happened that I would work at my little writing-table until
the small hours of the morning; and in such cases, more often than
not, I would leave the house directly after breakfast, walk down
Tottenham Court Road, and tack through Bloomsbury to Gray's Inn and
Fleet Street, or wherever else the office might lie for which the
manuscript I carried was destined. Where possible, I preferred this
method of disposing of manuscripts. Not only did it save stamps--a
considerable item with me--but it seemed quicker and safer than the
post. I had a dishonest little formula for porters and bell boys in
these offices, from the enunciation of which I derived a comforting
sense of security and dispatch.

'You might let the editor have this directly he comes in,' I would say
as I handed over my envelope; 'promised for to-day, without fail.'

Well, I had promised--myself. And this little formula, in addition to
making for prompt delivery, I thought, gave one a sense of actual
relationship with the editor. Save for the trifling fact that the
manuscript would, probably, in due course be returned, or even
consigned to the waste-paper basket, my method seemed to put me on the
footing of one who had written a commissioned article. The dramatic
value of the formula was greatly enhanced where one happened to know
the editor's name, and could say in a tone of urgent intimacy: 'You
might let Mr. ---- have this directly he comes in,' etc. In those
cases one walked down the