Chapter XXVI
“So you pushed that little snowball from the top? And now it has reached the bottom and become quite large? My faith! how surprising!”
—La Rabide.
T is an afternoon in December, gray and chilly and dark; neither the season nor the hour to exhilarate the heart. I am alone in my room, bending over my writing-table, endeavoring to relieve my depression upon paper.
Since my appearance upon the music-hall stage I have enjoyed the society of my Oxford friends while they remained in town; I have revelled with Teddy; I have had my “burst”; and now the reaction has come. The solace of my most real and intimate friend, Dick Shafthead, is denied me, for he has apparently left London for a time; at any rate, his rooms are shut up and he is not there. No company now but regrets and cynical reflections. A short time ago what bright fancies were visiting me!