A keen sense of humour is one of my richest , one that I prize more than I can tell, but never before have I felt so keenly the great desirability of being able to express myself humorously in writing. For this of mine, drab in all its essentials, tends ever to more gloom. There were touches of humour in my life, for I know that I often had a laugh, but I remember too that this healthful exercise was usually after I had gone to bed, and was reading one of my favourite books for perhaps the twentieth time. But I am bound to say that any relief to the gloom of my daily life except on Sundays, the delights of which I have spoken before, was almost wanting. I could, I dare say, introduce a few humorous touches occasionally, for which the reader would be duly grateful, but it would be at the expense of truth, and anyhow it would be of a character if it were from my experience of every day life.  
Take, for instance, a scene which I witnessed on Saturday night late, outside the East Dulwich Hotel, at the corner of Goose Green. It had been raining for a long time, and the streets were in an exceedingly bad state. Just there, however, some attempt had been made earlier in the day to sweep them, and in consequence the on both sides was full of liquid mud, had become in fact a of mud a yard wide and several inches deep. I was taking some pictures home during a slight break in the weather, and rounding this corner I saw two men, both of whom were drunk, endeavouring to take one another home. They staggered about a good deal, getting nearer and nearer the kerb, until one of them slipped down, and the other, endeavouring to raise him, rolled over on the top of him. Locked in a close embrace, and making no sound, they rolled into the kennel; while I, the spectator, helpless by reason of my burden, became doubly so because of a perfect agony of laughter. Like hippopotami they wallowed in the viscid stream, and at last emerged on the farther side, as Mrs Gamp would say, a marks of mud, but still horizontal. They rolled right across the road, which was fairly wide, and into the creek of mud on the other side where, with their heads on the kerb, they rested from their journey full of peace. A policeman and a little knot of spectators had by this time arrived, and much discussion, with shouts of laughter, went on as to what should be done with and for them. What was done eventually I do not know, for I had to fulfil my errand, aching all over with my paroxysms of laughter. Yet as the boys say when they are the victims, "I don't see anything to laugh at."
 
This digression is of aforethought, because I cannot help feeling that readers will say "I wish Bullen wouldn't so sue for our sympathy. Surely he must have had some good times." And that is the worst of the simple annals of the poor; they are deeply interesting of course to the , but are apt to become wearisome in the , because, as the Irishman said of his wife, they are all worse and no better. However I went on, , hopelessly, not because I was a brave man struggling with adversity, but because as far as my limited intelligence went I couldn't do anything else. Several people, one of whom most generously helped me over a tremendously difficult stile, suggested as being the obvious way out of all my troubles, but that I felt was impossible. True, I was a bankrupt de facto but not de jure, and I believed that if I did become a bankrupt in law, I should lose my last hope of earning a living, my job at the office. So I ruled that suggestion out as impracticable, for supposing I did lose my job, it was no figure of speech to call it my last hope. I was rapidly nearing forty, my own profession was irrevocably closed to me even if the state of my health would have allowed me to take it up again, and as for my other employment, with[Pg 173] thousands of abler, younger men clamouring for it, what possible had I? and I had a wife and five young children! I will not say that I was absolutely friendless, but the two or three faithful friends I had were powerless to help me except in a desperate emergency, and at a great personal sacrifice then. As a dear friend said to me the other day, while we were discussing the condition of a friend who had become the victim of a most serious misfortune absolutely without fault of his own: "There is nothing more heart-breaking than to have a friend who is what the Spaniards call gastados, used up, no more good in this pushing world. You can't keep him, you can't ask anybody else to keep him, and in spite of yourself, with the best will in the world, you get tired of his appeals for help, however piteous and sincere."
 
Is that not so? and all the more sad when it is the result of misfortune and not of indolence or . However I did not allow myself to think, for fear I should lose my power of sleep, which I knew would be fatal. I dared not open my letters, the postman's knock sent a clutching through the pit of my stomach, and if it had not been for my Sundays, with their entire switch off from the terrors of every day life, I feel sure I should have gone mad. It was at this that I began to write. Leaning over the counter in the empty shop I covered page after page with neat clerkly script, an exercise I always[Pg 174] loved, my early experiences at sea. It was a relief, and as such I enjoyed it, but if I ever had any wild dreams about publishing what I was writing they did not last, for when I had written about forty thousand words I put the MS. away and forgot all about it. Finally I threw it in the dustbin, which was a pity, for I daresay it was quite as good as anything I have ever done in the same way since.
 
Meanwhile matters towards that end which I felt was , but would not realise. I got into more difficulties with my landlord. The state of the house was simply disgraceful, and he would do nothing. Then all of us got sore throats, and the doctor said bluntly, "It's of no use my attending you unless you have these drains seen to; they are a grave danger to anybody's health who comes into your shop!" Thus I again approached my landlord, who sent a man to put two of upon the soil-pipe at the back of the house. Then in despair I wrote to the vestry, and very their surveyor appeared. He not merely my drains, but those of the whole row of houses in which my house stood. And then there was a pretty fine how d'ye do, I can tell you. My were all ripped up at the back to get at the drains, which of course were under the foundations, and when everything was in a state of the operations mysteriously ceased. Rats invaded the house and our small stock of provisions, until I took to hanging them up as we used to do on board ship. I wrote piteous letters to the vestry, them for mercy's sake to finish the job, but they took no notice and kept on doing so.
 
Then I made a bold stroke. I wrote to the Local Government Board, placing the whole facts before them. Talk about red tape and bureaucracy! Never have I dreamed of such celerity. Within forty-eight hours the work was completed, and I received from Whitehall a copy of an indignant letter from the vestry denouncing my complaint, as the work in question was done. I never before realised how efficient a public department might be in the proper hands. Those drains of mine had been open for three weeks, and there had been absolutely no response to my repeated applications to have the work done, when I took the step I have .
 
This little affair cost my landlord (so he said) £25, a large sum for a man in his position, and this did not improve our relations, as might be supposed. But I hardly thought he would go to the length he did. It is customary for such as I was to take a few days' grace for payment of the quarter's rent, which varies from one week to six according to the of the landlord, and the circumstances of the . Naturally I took as long as I could, and as long as I paid within a month was usually considered a good payer. With this landlord, however, I had to be very careful, especially after his last . Still I[Pg 176] was not prepared to find, as I did on coming home on the evening of quarter day, three bailiffs in my . One was an emissary of the landlord's, whose rent was only due at twelve that day; one was for the inhabited house-duty, a matter of a pound, including landlord's property tax; and one was from some other whose claim I had overlooked. The total amount with costs of all their claims amounted to a little less than £20.
 
I confess that unable as I generally was to extract any fun out of my troubles, this time was an exception. As I was introduced to each of my uninvited guests in turn, and heard their claims, I was suddenly seized with the humour of the situation, and laughed until I was fain to hold on to the counter, or I should have fallen down. My wife stood at the door of the shop parlour looking most anxiously at me, for she thought, as she afterwards told me, that my brain had given way at last, while the three looked at me, and at one another in an undecided fashion, which only made me laugh all the more. However, I gradually recovered, and then said, "Well, gentlemen, I am sorry for you if you have to remain here, for I can neither feed you nor give you a shake-down. So you'll have but a poor time of it. I can't possibly get any money until to-morrow, and I am doubtful if I can get much then. However, that's not the point. Do the best you can. I've got some work to get on with," and I mounted to my workshop and started.
 
Before many minutes two of them decided to go home for the night, having delegated their authority to the third, who as soon as their backs were turned came up to me and said, that if I could give him a couple of shillings he would go too, he didn't want to put me to any trouble. I told him I should have been glad to comply with his request, but as all the money I had was sixpence, I must forego the pleasure. He sighed, and then after a promise that I would let him in next morning, departed also, leaving me free to get on with my work. He had not been gone many minutes when I heard my chum Bob's musical whistle below, and immediately he came bounding up, having heard the news across at the library of my having a house full of bums. He could only sympathise, but rejoiced to find me in such good spirits, was surprised also, but not more so than myself. He left a couple of shillings, with the desire that I would make one of my famous against the time he closed the library, when we would have supper together.
 
I readily agreed and hurried up with my job in order to get at my co............