Well, in the first place, said his eminent solicitor, his employers were willing to retain him in their service providing that he obtained his discharge, but not otherwise. Supposing that to be the case, his earnings would be much reduced, say to £800 a year. Now the proposition made was that whatever he earned over £600 a year should be set aside to be distributed pro rata among his creditors until they had received a dividend of five shillings in the pound on their claims. All this on condition only that he received his discharge then and there. There was some little talk, purely I judged for the sake of appearances, and then he was discharged to begin again. Now I do not say that this was injustice, but if it was just, what was I to call the treatment I subsequently received?
I was presently subjected to a searching examination by a very clever gentleman, who dilated upon my iniquity in continuing to trade after I knew that I was unable to fulfil my obligations. All the questions put were from the notes of my preliminary examination, and I felt very grateful for my excellent memory.
No creditor appeared to say a word in my disfavour, and the examination was concluded, nothing apparently having been done for or against me. I was puzzled, and as soon as I got outside the Court I eagerly enquired of my faithful Mr Hardhat, who was waiting for me, what I ought to do now. "Apply for your discharge at once," said he, "for if you delay it, the period you will be suspended for (and it's sure to be two years), will only date from the time of application, however long hence that may be." Of course I was eager to apply at once, but when I learned that there would be more fees to pay amounting to several pounds, none of which money would benefit my creditors at all, I indignantly refused to do anything of the sort, and said that I didn't care if I was never discharged, I would pay no more fees if I had thousands. And I rejoice to say that I never did.
CHAPTER XVII THE DAY DAWNS
The emphatic 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 recital of these experiences, must wait for the proper sequence of events. Being assured that I was absolutely free from molestation 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 incubus 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 depressed 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 elastic of temperament, and the rebound I had lately felt was entirely beneficial to me. I worked at the bench still, but with reluctance, because I had learned by bitter experience, that work I never so hard, the reward was entirely incommensurate with the outlay 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 scribbled more and got several articles accepted at long intervals, 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 overtime 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 extravagant prices for my writing. With one honourable 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 also an advertisement revenue of many thousands a year, I sent a story of 5000 words. I received a most courteous 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 vigour, 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 dreaded 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 tenor. But most happily, however these pessimistic thoughts harassed me they did not affect my conduct, not because I determined that they should not, or braced myself in an heroic resolve to defy fate, age, or anything else that should tend to hinder my advancement, 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' an' a-shovin'." Very disagreeable to other people in many cases this persistence of a fellow for whom they cannot see the slightest necessity, but then, so much depends upon the point of view.