And this was where it had led him to, the radiant and delicate comrade of his youth.  As he sat propping his chin up with his hands the face that confronted destiny had grown haggard in an hour.

He pulled himself together, and deliberately reviewed the situation.  He had at that moment three and eightpence in his pocket, and lying about somewhere in the table-drawer there was part of last week’s salary and a cheque for nine pounds, the price of a recent article.  He could count on five pounds at Michaelmas, the quarterly rent of the furniture in the little house at Ealing.  Added to these certain sums there was that unknown incalculable amount that he might yet receive for unsolicited contributions.  He had made seventy-five pounds in this way last year.  The casual earnings of ninety-nine were no security for nineteen hundred; still, invincible hopefulness fixed the probabilities at that figure.

But it was now January, and Dicky Pilkington’s bill would be due in November.  By successive triumphs of ingenious economy he had reduced that once appalling seven hundred and fifty to a hundred and seventy-five.  He couldn’t actually count on more than twenty-six pounds three and eightpence with which to meet the liability.  And he had also to live for ten months before he met it.  Even invincible Hope was nervous facing those formidable figures.  It did indeed suggest the presence of a shadowy army in the rear, whole columns of figures marching invincibly to his aid.  They were the sums that might, that ought to be obtained by a dramatic poet in the hour of his success.  But Rickman had not been born over a bookseller’s shop for nothing; and an austere hereditary voice reminded him that he couldn’t really count on a penny from his tragedy.  He couldn’t even afford to write it.  The thing was, economically speaking, a crime.  It would of course be finished, as it had been begun, in defiance of economy, as of all other human pieties and laws, but it would be unreasonable to expect that any financial blessing could rest on it.

He had only got ten months to raise the money in.  It would probably take him that time to find regular work, if he found it.  There was not an editor in London to whom the initials S.K.R. conveyed the unique significance they did to Jewdwine, to Maddox and to Rankin.  He now thought with regret of the introductions he had refused in the insolence of his youth.  To Hanson for instance.  Hanson was a good sort, and he might have come in very handy now.  A few other names passed before him, men whom it would be useless for him to approach.  There was old Mackinnon, though, who was a good sort, too.  He had long ago forgotten that ancient jest which compared his head with the dome of the Museum.  He had been the most frequent entertainer of adventitious prose.  Mackinnon might be good for something.  He had half a mind to look him up.  The thought of Mackinnon made him feel almost cheerful again.