The declaration I made at the end of the last chapter seems to demand an explanation forthwith, but the reader, if he has had patience to follow me so far in my of these experiences, must wait for the proper sequence of events. Being assured that I was absolutely free from by anybody on account of past debts, and in no danger of any trouble so long as I did not obtain credit to the extent of £20 without disclosing the fact that I was an undischarged bankrupt, I went on my way rejoicing. For whatever doubts I had about my future, of one thing I was certain, and that was that I would never go into business again as a tradesman, and as for getting credit for £20 I laughed at the idea.  
Perhaps I was too elated at the knowledge that I was free from the hateful which had robbed me of all joy in my life for so long, but I think I had some excuse, and whether I had or not I allowed myself to feel happy. Occasionally I felt by the thought of how near I was to forty years of age, how small were my chances of starting my children in life, and how tired and worn out I was feeling, but I was naturally of , and the I had lately felt was beneficial to me. I worked at the bench still, but with , because I had learned by bitter experience, that work I never so hard, the reward was entirely incommensurate with the of energy. And so I took less and less interest in picture framing, and got back again to my beloved books in greater measure than ever.
 
Also I more and got several articles accepted at long , the remuneration for which, though pleasant to receive and always coming in handy to meet some most pressing need, such as clothes for the children, never raised in me any hopes of a permanent and substantial addition to my income. For I still regarded, by some twist of mind, the picture framing as my stand-by, although one article which I could write in an evening or in the morning before going to work would yield more when sold than I could earn in a week's by the really hard work of framing, to say nothing of the labour involved in fetching the material and carrying home the finished product. Not that I ever received any prices for my writing. With one exception, Chambers's Journal, all the organs I wrote for seemed anxious to get what I wrote for the smallest possible sum, or nothing if I could be made to forget that they had published my stuff. To one journal with an august name and a large circulation, having[Pg 254] also an advertisement revenue of many thousands a year, I sent a story of 5000 words. I received a most letter in reply with a statement that while they would much like to print the story, which was an excellent one, they could only offer me ten shillings for it! I took it, never mind why.
 
But taking things all round I was happier than I had been for many a day. Having been set free from that awful burden of the shop, and being finished for ever, (I hoped) with the whole body of County Court officials, bum-bailiffs, etc., I experienced a restful peace to which I had long been a stranger. I recovered much of my lost , for although the habit of work still clung to me and I did not waste a minute if I could help it, I no longer a knock at the door, no longer felt symptoms of heart failure at the sight of a postman coming towards me. Now and then I thought of my fortieth birthday fast approaching, believing as I did that a man of forty was too old to strike out any new line, that if he had never done anything worth doing he never would, and much more of the same . But most happily, however these pessimistic thoughts me they did not affect my conduct, not because I that they should not, or myself in an heroic resolve to defy fate, age, or anything else that should tend to hinder my , but for the same reason that I kept going so long in that hopeless shop, because the necessity was laid upon me, as the nigger song says, to keep "a-pushin'[Pg 255] an' a-shovin'." Very disagreeable to other people in many cases this of a fellow for whom they cannot see the slightest necessity, but then, so much depends upon the point of view.
 
My only object in writing the penultimate sentence is to clear myself of any suspicion of false hypocritical . I have the greatest horror and detestation of posing as one who, by sheer force of will and decision of character, has conquered circumstances, lived instead of died, and although beyond has reconstructed something navigable and sailed away from a far more profitable voyage. For I know that these things depend upon the quality of the fibre of which a man is and for which he can take no credit. It is this which often keeps a man at work when, had he been living in more prosperous conditions, he would have been in bed with grave doctors and nurses around him, and hourly bulletins as to his temperature, etc., being issued. I remember during the first the case of a carter for one of the great carrying companies in London who, it being a busy season, had been on duty twenty hours. He drove into the yard in the small hours of the morning, dropped the on his horse's back, but did not from his dickey. As he gave no reply to repeated hailing by his mates below, one mounted to him and found him stiff in death. It came out at the inquest that on leaving home twenty hours before he had told his wife that he felt very bad,[Pg 256] one moment shivering and the next burning, and all his limbs one big ache, but the fibre of the man insisted upon going on. Fear of losing his job, of being short in his week's had spurred him, but the frame gave out under the great strain put upon it by the spirit.
 
You may call it if you will, but if it has any of that quality I am sure it is unconscious, , and not to be referred to any conceived and determined desire to overcome obstacles apparently insurmountable. Of course it is far more admirable, more of respect than is the conduct of the weakling who under the first blast of adversity, who must always be up and pushed along the way that he ought to go, and never does anything for himself that he can get others to do for him—a born loafer, in fact, for whom there really is no room in a work-a-day world, but who, ! thrives bodily upon the labours of others, and is often treated with far more consideration than those who are labouring on.
 
It was about this time that I unconsciously dropped upon a new form of activity entirely from the tradesman line. I was a worker in a little mission whereof none of the members earned more than £2 a week, and some only half that sum. I had joined it in my desire to get away from the and of the ordinary church or where two-thirds of the good that might be done is wasted[Pg 257] upon most unchristian between members. I had got disgusted with them all as far as my experience had gone, and I felt that my only hope of remaining associated with a body of was to get as low down as possible, where nobody could put on side or ape the patron.
 
Now it was our custom in our little hall during the winter months to give, whenever we could raise sufficient funds, a free tea to the poor neglected children of the neighbourhood, of whom there were a sad number. It always meant a lot of work collecting the few shillings necessary, but that work was never by any of us, and we always felt rewarded at the sight of the poor kiddies stuffing themselves. How cheaply we did it to be sure. Tea never cost us more than one shilling a pound, condensed milk, threepence halfpenny a pound tin; good cake, from the philanthropic firm of Frean, we got for fourpence, and sometimes threepence a pound; and other matters, including margarine, on a like scale. Oh, it was a feast! and there was always a hungry crowd of grown-ups outside at the close who were grateful for the carefully saved fragments.
 
Well! it came to pass that at this particular time I speak of the winter promised to be exceptionally severe, and we could not raise funds for our free teas. So, in a moment of inspiration, I suggested that if we could raise sufficient funds to have some lantern slides made from pictures which I would get, and take the[Pg 258] Peckham Public Hall, I would give a lecture on the South Sea Whaling industry, of which I had never forgotten a detail. All the brethren entered into the proposal amore, but I doubt if it would ever have matured but for a recent convert, a young clerk in a big manufacturing house, who drew out his and financed the affair.
 
That difficulty over, we went ahead full speed and everybody we knew to buy tickets, getting a guinea by the way from Sir John Blundell , who probably thought it was worth that to shelve us when we to him for his of the show. The great night arrived, and we had secured a popular local preacher to take the chair. His organist had promised to play an accompaniment for two sacred songs which I was to sing, and best of all, four hundred tickets were sold. Our popular preacher, however, very nearly ruined us, for, after introducing me in a very speech, he said to my shame and indignation, "Will brother so-and-so lead us in prayer," naming a long-winded old donkey who would you on for an indefinite length of time in a that was anything but prayer, even if such a was at all indicated on such an occasion.
 
I verily believe that I lost a of sweat while that old idiot maundered on. I felt in every nerve the and disgust of the mixed audience, and at last, in despair, I actually prayed myself that the Lord would stop his wretched twaddle, for it was nothing[Pg 259] else. Apparently my prayer was answered, almost immediately, for he had a violent paroxysm of coughing which enabled us to go ahead. Of course I was not at all nervous, my long training in the open air prevented that, and equally of course (I suppose) the strangeness of the subject held the folk . However that may have been, I know that presently seeing my last slides appearing and fearing that I was cutting the matter too short, I asked a friend of mine in front (in a stage whisper) the time. "Ten o'clock, Tom," he replied, in a voice audible all over the hall. My, but there was nearly a panic. Some wise person turned the lights up, and in about two minutes nearly everybody had gone.
 
You see, of them came from far, and our Peckham communications in those days were none of the best. A f............