Jim promised.

“Say ‘S’welp me Gawd,’ Jim.”

“S’welp me Gawd, mother.”

Then the woman, having arranged her worldly affairs, lay back ready, and Death struck.

Jim kept his oath.  He found the money, and buried his mother; and then, putting his household goods on a barrow, moved into cheaper apartments—­half an old shed, for which he paid two shillings a week.

For eighteen months he and the baby lived there.  He left the child at a nursery every morning, fetching it away each evening on his return from work, and for that he paid fourpence a day, which included a limited supply of milk.  How he managed to keep himself and more than half keep the child on the remaining two shillings I cannot say.  I only know that he did it, and that not a soul ever helped him or knew that there was help wanted.  He nursed the child, often pacing the room with it for hours, washed it, occasionally, and took it out for an airing every Sunday.

Notwithstanding all which care, the little beggar, at the end of the time above mentioned, “pegged out,” to use Jimmy’s own words.

The coroner was very severe on Jim.  “If you had taken proper steps,” he said, “this child’s life might have been preserved.” (He seemed to think it would have been better if the child’s life had been preserved.  Coroners have quaint ideas!) “Why didn’t you apply to the relieving officer?”

“’Cos I didn’t want no relief,” replied Jim sullenly.  “I promised my mother it should never go on the parish, and it didn’t.”

The incident occurred, very luckily, during the dead season, and the evening papers took the case up, and made rather a good thing out of it.  Jim became quite a hero, I remember.  Kind-hearted people wrote, urging that somebody—­the ground landlord, or the Government, or some one of that sort—­ought to do something for him.  And everybody abused the local vestry.  I really think some benefit to Jim might have come out of it all if only the excitement had lasted a little longer.  Unfortunately, however, just at its height a spicy divorce case cropped up, and Jim was crowded out and forgotten.

I told the boys this story of mine, after Jephson had done telling his, and, when I had finished, we found it was nearly one o’clock.  So, of course, it was too late to do any more work to the novel that evening.

CHAPTER IV

We held our next business meeting on my houseboat.  Brown was opposed at first to my going down to this houseboat at all.  He thought that none of us should leave town while the novel was still on hand.

MacShaughnassy, on the contrary, was of opinion that we should work better on a houseboat.  Speaking for himself, he said he never felt more like writing a really great work than when lying in a hammock among whispering leaves, with the deep blue sky above him, and a tumbler of iced claret cup within easy reach of his hand.  Failing a hammock, he found a deck chair a great incentive to mental labour.  In the interests of the novel, he strongly recommended me to take down with me at least one comfortable deck chair, and plenty of lemons.