I am afraid the leader-writers' eloquence and style--real and ever-present features in this journal's pages--were entirely wasted upon me. I copied them with slavish lack of thought, intent only on my shorthand, and most generally upon the physical difficulty of keeping my eyes open. I invariably fell asleep three or four times before finishing my allotted task, and only managed to keep awake for the reading of it by standing erect beside the packing-case and reading aloud. How it would have astonished those gifted leader-writers if they could have walked past, overheard me, and recognised in my halting, drowsy declamation their own well-rounded periods!
As I read the last word my spirits always rose instantly, and my craving for sleep left me. With keen anticipatory pleasure I would fold up the newspaper ready for the morning, take one look out from the doorway to note the weather, shed my clothes, snuff the candle, and climb luxuriously into bed with the current book, whatever it might be. No newspaper for me. This was real reading, and while I read in bed (travel, biography, and fiction) I lived exclusively in the life my author depicted. Vanished utterly for me were Dursley and its worthy folk, and Australia too for that matter. Practically all the books I read carried me to the Old World, and most often to England, which for me was rapidly becoming a synonym for romance, charm, interest, culture, and all the good things of which one dreams. Everything desirable, and not noticeable or recognised as being in my daily life, I grew gradually to think of as being part and parcel of English life. I did not as yet long to go to England. One does not long to visit the moon. But when some well-wrought piece of atmosphere, some happy turn of speech, some inspiring glimpse of high and noble motives or tender devotion, caught and held me, in a book, I would sigh quietly and say to myself:
'Ah, yes; in England!'
Looking back upon it, I am rather pleased with myself for the stubborn persistence with which I slogged away at the shorthand; because it never once touched my interest. For me, it was a veritable treadmill. And, for that reason, I suppose, I was never really good at it. I have no doubt whatever that it had real value for me as a disciplinary exercise.
And then my candle would gutter and expire. I have sometimes, by means of sitting up in bed, holding the book high, and using great concentration, devoured a whole chapter between the first sputtering sound of the candle's death-rattle and the moment of its actual demise. Indeed, I have more than once finished a chapter, when within half a page of it, by matchlight. But that, of course, was gross extravagance. Our candles seemed to me abominably short, and I once tried to seduce Mrs. Gabbitas into allowing me two at a time; but she, good soul, wisely said that one was more than I had any right to burn in an evening, and I was too miserly to buy them for myself.
Yes, it seems horribly unnatural in a youth, but I am afraid I was rather miserly at that time. I wanted passionately to do various things. Precisely what, I had never so far thought out. But I did not desire the less ardently for that. I suppose the thing I wanted was to 'better myself,' as the servants say. Was I not a servant? Without ever reasoning the matter out, I felt strongly that the possession of some money, a certain store, was very necessary to my well-being; that in some mysterious way it would add immensely to my chances, to my strength in the world; that it would put me on a footing superior to that I had at present. I even thought of it, in my innocence, as Capital. Many of my musings used to begin with: 'If a fellow has Capital'--and I believed that if he had not this magic talisman his position was very different and inferior. I thought of the world's hewers of wood and drawers of water as being the folk who had no Capital; the others as the people who had somehow acquired possession of the talisman. And I suppose I wanted to be of the company of the others.
Ten shillings a week means twenty-six pounds a year; and I very well remember that on the first anniversary of my entering Mr. Perkins's employ, my Government Savings Bank book showed a balance to my credit of twenty-two pounds three and fourpence. This sum, I decided, might fairly rank as Capital; it really merited the august name, I felt, being actually above the sum of twenty pounds. Eighteen pounds was a respectable nest-egg. Yes, but twenty-three [sic] pounds three and fourpence--that was Capital; and I now definitely took rank, however humbly, among the people who possessed the talisman. I realised very well that I was poor; that this sum of money was not a large one. Still, it was Capital, and, as such, it gave me a deal of satisfaction, and more of confidence than I could have had without it. I am certain of that. What a pity it is that one cannot always, later in life, obtain the same secure and confident feeling by virtue of possessing twenty pounds!
This meant that I had spent less than four pounds in the year. But no; Mr. Perkins gave me ten shillings, and Mrs. Perkins five shillings, at Christmas time. Also, I won ten shillings as a prize in a competition arranged by the Dursley Chronicle. It was for the best five hundred word description of an Australian scene, and I described Livorno Bay and its derelict; and, as I thought at the time--quite mistakenly, I am sure--described them rather well. Apart from a book or two I had bought practically nothing, save boots and socks and a Sunday suit of clothes. Mrs. Perkins had kindly supplied quite a stock of shirts for me, by means of operations performed upon old shirts of her husband's. My Sunday suit of clothes had occupied me greatly for some weeks. I had never before bought clothing of any kind. After two or three visits to the store, and many talks at mealtimes with Mrs. Gabbitas, I finally decided upon blue serge.
'It do show the dust, but it don't show the wear so much as the rest of 'em,' was the Gabbitular verdict which finally settled this momentous business. A tie to match was given in with the suit, a concession which I owed entirely to Mrs. Gabbitas's determined enterprise. The tie was of satin, and, taken in conjunction with a neatly arranged wad of silk handkerchief, extraordinarily variegated in colour (Mrs. Gabbitas's present), protruding from the breast-pocket of the new coat, it produced on the first Sunday after its purchase an effect which I found at once arresting and sedately rich. My looking-glass was not more than six inches square, but, by propping it up on a chair, and receding from it gradually, I was able to obtain a very fair view of my trousers; while, by replacing it on the wall, and observing my reflection carefully from different angles, I was able to judge of most parts of the coat and waistcoat.
After a good deal of thought, I decided that the best effect was obtained by fastening the top button of the coat, turning back one lower corner with careful negligence, and keeping it there by holding one hand in my trouser pocket. In that order, then, I interviewed Mrs. Gabbitas in the scullery, to receive her congratulations before proceeding to church. Altogether, it was a day of pleasing excitement; but, greatly though it intrigued me, the purchase left me as much a miser as ever, my only other extravagance for a long time being a cream-coloured parasol--my present to Mrs. Gabbitas; and---I may as well confess it--I could not have brought myself to buy that, but for the fact that it was called 'slightly shop-soiled,' and had been 'marked down' from 8s. 11d. to 4s. 10 1/2d.