The poor gentleman was then close upon forty years old.  There remained to him a capital which he durst not expend; invested, it bore him an income upon which a labourer could scarce have subsisted.  The only possible place of residence—­because the only sure place of hiding—­was London, and to London Mr. Tymperley betook himself.  Not at once did he learn the art of combating starvation with minim resources.  During his initiatory trials he was once brought so low, by hunger and humiliation, that he swallowed something of his pride, and wrote to a certain acquaintance, asking counsel and indirect help.  But only a man in Mr. Tymperley’s position learns how vain is well-meaning advice, and how impotent is social influence.  Had he begged for money, he would have received, no doubt, a cheque, with words of compassion; but Mr. Tymperley could never bring himself to that.

He tried to make profit of his former amusement, fretwork, and to a certain extent succeeded, earning in six months half a sovereign.  But the prospect of adding one pound a year to his starveling dividends did not greatly exhilarate him.

All this time he was of course living in absolute solitude.  Poverty is the great secluder—­unless one belongs to the rank which is born to it; a sensitive man who no longer finds himself on equal terms with his natural associates, shrinks into loneliness, and learns with some surprise how very willing people are to forget his existence.  London is a wilderness abounding in anchorites—­voluntary or constrained.  As he wandered about the streets and parks, or killed time in museums and galleries (where nothing had to be paid), Mr. Tymperley often recognised brethren in seclusion; he understood the furtive glance which met his own, he read the peaked visage, marked with understanding sympathy the shabby-genteel apparel.  No interchange of confidences between these lurking mortals; they would like to speak, but pride holds them aloof; each goes on his silent and unfriended way, until, by good luck, he finds himself in hospital or workhouse, when at length the tongue is loosed, and the sore heart pours forth its reproach of the world.

Strange knowledge comes to a man in this position.  He learns wondrous economies, and will feel a sort of pride in his ultimate discovery of how little money is needed to support life.  In his old days Mr. Tymperley would have laid it down as an axiom that ‘one’ cannot live on less than such-and-such an income; he found that ‘a man’ can live on a few coppers a day.  He became aware of the prices of things to eat, and was taught the relative virtues of nutriment.  Perforce a vegetarian, he found that a vegetable diet was good for his health, and delivered to himself many a scornful speech on the habits of the carnivorous multitude.  He of necessity abjured alcohols, and straightway longed to utter his testimony on a teetotal platform.  These were his satisfactions.  They compensate astonishingly for the loss of many kinds of self-esteem.