ning at this,
but he only said as he swept processionally away:

'I will give the requisite instructions.'

XIII

For some weeks I was rather interested by the manipulation of that
correspondence. Treated in a romantic spirit, the work was not unlike
novel or play-writing; and, on paper, I established interesting
relations with quite a number of rural clergymen, country squires,
London clubmen, a don or two, and some lady correspondents.

I availed myself generously of the hint about giving an occasional
lead, and in starting new topics of discussion entered with zest into
the task of creating and upholding imaginary partisans with one hand,
whilst with the other hand bringing forth caustic opponents to vilify
and belittle them. As a fact, I believe I made its correspondence the
most amusing and interesting feature in the paper. But, as his way
was, Arncliffe lost his enthusiasm for it after a time, and,
delegating the care of its remains to some underling, spurred me on to
fresh fields of journalistic enterprise.

It was not easy for me to develop quite the same interest in these
later undertakings, whatever their intrinsic qualities, for the reason
that my domestic circumstances were becoming steadily more and more of
a preoccupation and an anxiety. It had not taken very long for me to
learn that, in my case at all events, the fact of one's income being
doubled does not necessarily mean that one's life is made smooth and
easy upon its domestic side. By virtue of my increased earnings we had
moved, after my first month as a salaried man, to rather better rooms;
but there seemed no point in having more than two of them, since I now
had a room of my own at the _Advocate_ office, _vice_ poor Dr. Powell
and his leg-rest, now no longer to be met with in that building.

As time went on many unpleasant things became evident, among them the
conclusion that ours, Fanny's and mine, was to be a nomadic sort of
existence, though it was apparently never to fall to me to give notice
of an intended change of residence. The notice invariably came from
our landladies. And the better the lodging, the briefer our stay in
it, because our notice came the sooner. In view of this it was, more
than for any monetary reason--though, as a fact, it did seem to me
that I was rather more short of money now than in my poorer days--that
we took to living in shabby quarters, and in the frowzier types of
apartment houses, where few questions