last chapter closed with a bitter confession of incompetence on my part that i would not make if i could help it, but alas it is too true. account for it i cannot, except by saying that i began by getting into debt, as i have before said, and never afterwards until the end of that régime came was i able to emerge from the condition of poverty i have attempted to describe, not though my struggles were incessant and certainly severe. it tinged my whole life and robbed me of my rightful proportion of joy, this want of ability to manage my own affairs upon a very small and strictly stationary income. if this condition of things may be taken for granted, whether with blame or pity, it will simplify matters a good deal and save me humiliating allusions to it every now and then.

so time fled along in rapid fashion, for now i never had a moment to spare. and still further to curtail the time at my disposal, i, finding the burden of the rent in the west of london too grievous to be borne, to say nothing of the cruel anxiety of letting lodgings unfurnished, decided to migrate to the far east of london, between upton park and east ham. there i had heard that a neat five-roomed house with a long garden could be hired for seven and six a week inclusive of all rates and taxes. (i believe the same house would fetch nearly if not quite double now.) that was a rental i felt able to pay, and even if the great distance from my employment did mean extra expense, it was well worth a struggle to have a home to ourselves freed from the incubi of lodgers or sub landlord.

so with great hopes of making the last move for a long time, i commenced the big business. it must be confessed that the auspices were not very bright, my wife being too ill to stand upon her feet, my eldest child a toddler of five, and my next one quite a baby. but in those days such details hardly fretted me, i was so used to them. and consequently it was with a stout heart that, having succeeded in hiring a big van and horse and man, at one and sixpence an hour, i commenced the long day's labour at seven in the morning. i carried my wife and little ones into a good samaritan next door, who looked after them, while my helper and i dismantled the home and carefully stowed it in the van. for once i had found a man who was willing to work as hard as i could, and who did not seize every opportunity to suggest rest and refreshment. so we got on very well indeed.

by nine o'clock all was ready, my wife was comfortably secured upon a sofa lashed to the tailboard of the van, the baby was accommodated with an impromptu cot on the keyboard of the piano, and the five-year-old also had a place for her little chair. so we started off for our new home facing the twelve miles between us and that distant suburb without misgivings, though it was certainly anything but a picnic for the horse. i do not recall how many times we halted, only i know that but few of them involved the spending of money, that being as usual a very limited quantity with me. but at five o'clock the weary trudge was over, and with fresh energy we tackled the task of getting the chattels indoors. with such good will did we both work that by six all was over, and the hard-working carman, apparently satisfied with my moderate tip of a shilling, and sixteen and six for the hire of the vehicle, departed and left me to the tackling of my biggest task of the day.

i felt as if i would much rather lie down and rest, but it is astonishing what you can do when you must, and finding fresh energy somewhere i soon had the helpless wife and children fairly comfortable, with a bit of fire in a bedroom. while thus engaged i was drawn to the window by a tremendous crash of thunder and flash of lightning, and there, outside one of the opposite houses, was ranged on the pavement nearly the whole of a family's furniture exposed to the full fury of a torrent of rain. indeed it was pitiful, and my discontent at the heavy task before me was changed[pg 96] into great gratitude when i realised what i had escaped from by only a few minutes.

i went back to my work with a good heart, and before midnight, when dead beat, i crawled into bed and fell at once into a sleep so sound that even the heavenly artillery failed to disturb me, i had reduced my new abode to something like order. i was up again at 5.30, having ever been able, no matter how weary, to rise at any time necessary, and after another hour's work at straightening things out, sallied forth to find someone who would come and help my helpless ones during my absence. this i fortunately succeeded in doing in time, and at 7.30 i was on my way to the office looking forward to a good rest for my muscles all day, even if my brain would certainly be superlatively active.

now i am quite well aware that in chronicling the above i am laying myself open to the charge of being jejune, trivial, etc., and i know too, that to many men of my own class such details as i have given above will be so familiar that they will wonder why ever i should have written about them. but somehow i have felt that, as in the subjects of my other books, a little plain and simple truth amidst the flood of invention by writers who have merely looked on, might not be out of place, might indeed be of use. for i hold that it is impossible, even for those who are most interested but do not live the life, however keen they may be, to portray faithfully all the day and night doings of the people they write about. they may and do try hard and honestly to fulfil their self-imposed task, but as long as they can retire to their comfortably furnished homes and nicely served meals whenever they like, they will never be able to describe truly, however much they wish to do so.

for a little while the novelty of setting my house in order and the delight of having a garden for the first time in my life prevented me from dwelling upon the obvious disadvantages of the change of abode i had made. but when i came to realise that in order to live at a low rent and have a little house to myself i had to put in nearly four hours a day travelling, i began to wonder whether i had not been foolish after all. this was long before the days of the extension of the district railway to east ham, and i could only keep my travelling expenses within possible limits by taking a workman's ticket, not available after 7 a.m., to fenchurch street, and walking thence to victoria. this long journey, during which i was perforce idle, played havoc with my business of picture-framing, yet still i managed to keep my hand in, and indeed improved a little in that i had a small workshop to myself now, and no longer made frames on the kitchen table.

and i should be ungrateful indeed if i did not remember most affectionately the delights of wanstead park and epping forest. many and many a pilgrimage i made in the summer with the children packed[pg 98] in a big perambulator and a bag containing all the materials for a homely picnic slung on the handles to those sylvan glades, and here, at no other expense save the muscular effort, enjoyed a delightful holiday, the best perhaps i have ever known, because purely unconventional and costless. i had the satisfaction of feeling too that, in spite of the rapidity with which streets of small houses like the one i was living in were springing up all around me, the grand forest would never be built on any more, would always be available for such poor workers as myself.

nevertheless i confess i did mightily begrudge the great waste of time involved in my much travelling. in the summer it was not so bad, but in winter i and many more in like case, who for motives of economy got to our respective places of employment long before we could get in, suffered much from lack of shelter from cold and wet. just one of the many unconsidered evils of living in a vast and over-crowded city. my extra work of picture framing suffered also, not merely because customers in my new neighbourhood were exceedingly scarce, everybody being so poor, but because of the long, long distance i had to fetch materials, especially glass, which in the crowded trains at night was a most ticklish and brittle load. i cannot now realise definitely the sudden rushes i used to make through the heart of the city at the busiest hour of the evening, my struggle with the clambering crowds up the steep stairs in fenchurch street station, and the journey homewards in the close-packed, reeking compartment, dreading every moment lest a lurch of the train should damage my precious burden. it is all like some hideous nightmare, those wet and foggy nights when my lungs seemed fit to burst with coughing, and all my senses warned me to go slow, while my needs spurred me, and many times i had to stop and remember how many were in far more evil case than myself, or i should have indeed fallen by the wayside.

yet this life too i endured for three years, at the end of which time i was fully convinced that living so far away from my daily work was for me at anyrate a profound mistake. also i had another child and was in consequence driven harder than ever, was more desirous than ever to have some steady auxiliary to my exiguous income, some means of getting clear of that furniture incubus which kept my nose to the grindstone. besides all these things i had often in winter, despite my early leaving home, to spend several hours on the way to the city by reasons of floods, to which our neighbourhood then seemed particularly liable, and had been curtly warned by the powers above me that i would do well to move nearer to my work if i wished to retain it. which warnings gave me a cold chill at the heart, for although i was in age not much past thirty, i was already beginning to feel old from the strain of living, and i knew how scanty were the chances of getting another such berth as mine should i lose the one i had now got.

but i doubt whether even these powerful incentives to a change would have been sufficient to make me move, but for an event which changed the whole course of my life. for one thing, where was i to go and enjoy better conditions than those under which i now lived? even apartments were now not to be thought of, for i had three children, and except in such neighbourhoods as i dared not descend to, no one would let apartments to people with a family. this again is one of the factors governing the lives of the workers which those comfortable souls who wail about the declining birth-rate do not think of. god knows it is hard enough for any poor worker in england to maintain a growing family in decency, without being treated worse than a beggar or a criminal in seeking to find lodgment for them which he is ready to pay for. thousands of men have been driven to pauperism or practical socialism by the accursed system of oppression—no children wanted.

so that every enquiry i made about lodgings nearer my work threw me back to the grim fact that in some respects, i was better off now than any change could make me. and then came the event, the impulse from without, which drove me against my own better judgment into the thorny and difficult ways of the small shopkeeper. my wife received a small legacy, one that had been left contingent upon the death of a woman who enjoyed the income of the bequest for life. she died, and the capital was divided among a very large number of expectant folk, none of whom received, according to their ideas, much more than a tithe of what was really due to them. my wife's share was well under £200, but even that was a fortune to our entirely restricted vision. of course the first and most important question to be decided was how to dispose of this money to the best advantage so that we might feel the benefit of it? but underlying this there was a feeling upon my part that as it was not mine in any sense my wife should have the disposal of it, so long as she did not insist upon, as i once heard a county court registrar pithily remark, frittering it away upon paying my outstanding liabilities. no, i do not exactly mean debts, but in clearing up those burdens which demanded regular instalments of so much a month.

i am glad to say, however, that nothing was farther from her ideas than that, for as she put it, the furniture was all worn out long before it was paid for, being such utter rubbish, and therefore the longer its vendors could legitimately be kept waiting for their ill-gotten gains the better. alas, to be wise after the event is futile, yet i am now sadly inclined to think that had such a proposal been made by her and accepted by me it would have been better for all of us. at anyrate this book would not have been written, nor, i feel certain, any other of the small library that i have written during the last ten years.

her suggestion, no, it was more than that, it was a demand, was that this money should be laid out in taking a shop. a double-fronted shop whereof one side should be devoted to art pictorial in the shape of its accessories, engravings, frames, artistic materials, etc., and the other to what is rather pompously called art needlework, and fancy goods, the latter being an enormously elastic term.

to say that i was alarmed would be putting matters much too mildly. i was appalled. i dreaded beyond expression increasing my already heavy liabilities. i doubted with a scepticism of the blackest my ability to run a shop for myself, however well i might be able to do it for another—in fact, i saw nothing in the proposal but disaster. but my wife, confident in her powers as a shopkeeper (having had no experience) and fired with a laudable desire to help in the collection of the family income, insisted, even at the length of declaring that if i would not take a shop she would without my help. and that i saw would be avoiding an imaginary scylla for the terrors of a real charybdis. so i yielded, ungracefully, but completely, and thenceforward until the time which shall complete this narrative never did i know a care-free hour.

the first thing was to find the shop, and if i were able in mr pett ridge's delightful manner to detail our experiences in those pilgrimages i doubt not that the recital would make several readable columns. the lies we were told would fill several volumes. the fortunes we were sure to make were so vast that they were unspendable. every miserable, little, obviously hopeless shop was lauded so that i began to fear a complete obsession, and at last i declared that i would not take any advertised business at all, i would build up a business of our own. yes, i used those memorable words, and, to my shame be it said, without even the excuse that i believed them myself. miserable man that i was, i felt certain that this enterprise of ours was foredoomed. i knew, none better, that there was nothing of the napoleon about me, that i was far too prone to take no for an answer for anything of that kind to be possible.

presently i began to feel that this quest of a shop was destined to bring me prematurely to my grave. east, west, north, and south i sought, and now i felt no nearer than at the outset to the object of my search. at last i found what apparently was exactly the thing, a double-fronted shop with a sufficient number of living rooms above, in a business thoroughfare within easy reach of town, and at the fairly reasonable rent of £40 a year. i knew no one who could tell me anything about the character of the neighbourhood, so i had to form my own conclusions as to the prospects of business there. and in any case i was so weary of[pg 104] searching for the apparently unattainable that i was willing to be deceived had anybody tried to persuade me. but that i think was the determining factor. nobody did try to influence me. the man who owned the shop and carried on the business of a grocer next door did not seem at all anxious to have me for a tenant, in fact he was most reticent and retiring when approached, which may have been genius on his part, although i never saw cause to suspect him of anything of the kind.

at anyrate i persuaded myself that i should never find any better shop than this for my purpose and i closed the bargain by paying handsel, and fixing the date for coming in. then i had to turn my attention to the fitting up of this shop, for it was absolutely bare, just three match-boarded walls which by the way were covered with some messy alleged varnish which never dried, and the double front as aforesaid. i procured several price-lists from firms whose speciality was the fitting up of shops, and after a prolonged study of them came to the conclusion that to fit up this shop in even the most economical way, according to their specifications, would absorb our entire capital and necessitate our procuring stock entirely on credit. which was absurd; for we had no credit, at least in my innocence of business i knew of none. later, i learned to my sorrow that the obtaining of credit was easy in almost an exactly inverse ratio to the difficulty of meeting the bills when they came in.

in this difficulty of fitting the shop, however, as in so many others that i have encountered, i had not the privilege of retreat. i had burned my bridges and had perforce to advance in what at first appeared to be a hopeless task. but i am getting on too fast, for of course, before i could begin shop-fitting it was necessary that i should move in, this operation being in itself, with my limited resources, a sufficiently formidable one. but here again, i met with a powerful coadjutor in the man that used to serve us with vegetables and coals at upton park, a burly costermonger who had risen to the dignity of a little shop and a horse and van from the humble beginnings of a hand-barrow. it was his proud boast that he would rather at any time go hungry himself than refuse a poor customer half a hundred of coals or a few pounds of potatoes because she had no money. he and i often had a yarn and had become great friends, so that when i enlisted his aid in moving the long distance from upton park to lordship lane, east dulwich, i felt that relief which only comes from implicit reliance upon someone whom you feel is stronger than yourself. i know all about self-help and have been compelled to practice it all my life, but the joy of having a friend, how great and how pleasant it is!

with his powerful aid the moving out was got over with comparative ease, but even so, it was dark before we arrived at our destination, the children being cold, tired, and hungry. and then a difficulty occurred[pg 106] which almost daunted me. i had the key of the shop, but my landlord had bolted up inside so that i could not get in. and when i went to him he offered me my handsel money back, mumbling something about "matters not being satisfactory." what he meant i do not even now know but that was what he said, and there was i in the street with all my belongings, ten miles from the home i had left at 8 a.m. and with three small children. my friend and ally here arose to the occasion. he literally bullied the landlord into letting us in, a thing i could never have done, and presently i found relief from my anxiety in the feverish activity of getting our chattels indoors. i never heard, and so i can never tell, why my landlord desired to evade his bargain regardless of my sufferings, nor, although i even now feel curious, shall i ever know.

oh, that good fellow, how he did work as if he had just begun his day instead of having been at it since about 4 a.m. he helped me set up the beds, straighten up a living room, lit a fire, fetched some supper from a local pork butcher's, and at last with an earnest enquiry as to whether he couldn't do anything more for me, supposed he'd better be getting towards home as he had to be up at three the next morning. falteringly i assured him that he had done far more than i could ever have expected and what was i in his debt? he said brusquely, "oh, i ain't got no time to bother abart that nar. you get strite an' i'll pop over an' see yer in a few dyes. good night missus, good night guvnor," and he was gone. it was two months before i saw him again, and then only because i sought him out in my first leisure. and he would not take a penny more than ten shillings. i paid him that, but i have never discharged, because i cannot, the heavy debt of gratitude he laid upon me, more especially for the knowledge of how good and kind one poor man can be to another. i have had many such experiences, but each one has been peculiarly fragrant, especially sweet in itself, a standing rebuke to me for once holding a doctrine of the innate depravity of mankind.

as soon as he had gone i realised that i was so tired that i could hardly stand, and so i made haste to put things in readiness for the morning and get to bed. but once there my life-long habit asserted itself, and i had to find a book for a little read before sleep. and to my great content i found mark twain's "innocents at home," and read for perhaps the hundredth time the touching story of scotty briggs and the callow minister. in it i forgot my troubles, my weariness of body and mind and apprehensions for the future, and with a happy sigh i laid the book down, blew out the candle, and went to sleep. years after, dining with mark twain at the devonshire club, i told him of the incident and saw his deep tender eyes fill with tears. he silently put out his hand and said "shake." now can there be any higher reward for a writer than this,[pg 108] that he has been able by his books to make his fellow-creatures forget for a while the burden that has been crushing them, and has lifted them into new hope and energy for the coming unknown day? i think not.