Ellen had given it another scrub from top
to bottom herself after they were gone, and it was as clean as a new pin.
I almost felt as though I could have lived in it myself, and as for
Ernest, he was in the seventh heaven. He said it was all my doing and
Ellen's.

There was already a counter in the shop and a few fittings, so that
nothing now remained but to get some stock and set them out for sale.
Ernest said he could not begin better than by selling his clerical
wardrobe and his books, for though the shop was intended especially for
the sale of second-hand clothes, yet Ellen said there was no reason why
they should not sell a few books too; so a beginning was to be made by
selling the books he had had at school and college at about one shilling
a volume, taking them all round, and I have heard him say that he learned
more that proved of practical use to him through stocking his books on a
bench in front of his shop and selling them, than he had done from all
the years of study which he had bestowed upon their contents.

For the enquiries that were made of him whether he had such and such a
book taught him what he could sell and what he could not; how much he
could get for this, and how much for that. Having made ever such a
little beginning with books, he took to attending book sales as well as
clothes sales, and ere long this branch of his business became no less
important than the tailoring, and would, I have no doubt, have been the
one which he would have settled down to exclusively, if he had been
called upon to remain a tradesman; but this is anticipating.

I made a contribution and a stipulation. Ernest wanted to sink the
gentleman completely, until such time as he could work his way up again.
If he had been left to himself he would have lived with Ellen in the shop
back parlour and kitchen, and have let out both the upper floors
according to his original programme. I did not want him, however, to cut
himself adrift from music, letters and polite life, and feared that
unless he had some kind of den into which he could retire he would ere
long become the tradesman and nothing else. I therefore insisted on
taking the first floor front and back myself, and furnishing them with
the things which had been left at Mrs Jupp's. I bought these things of
him for a small sum and had them moved into his present abode.

I went to Mrs Jupp's to arrange all this, as Ernest did not like going to
Ashpit Place. I had hal