3.
How hard that first winter was! Fifty pounds went much further in those days than it does now, but even then he had to go without many needful things. An overcoat, for one. You can picture him a tall, thin pale youth, with a woollen comforter and a shabby suit far too small for him. He was often cold and hungry. A cough bothered him.
One day Mr. Ainger came down to see him.
“Hullo, young man. You haven’t written that book yet?”
“No, sir.”
“I am surprised. Assailed as you are by a dozen pungent odours do you not realize that under the cork-trees of Corsica the goats browse on the wild thyme in order that those shelves may be replenished with green veined Roquefort; that cattle bells jingle in the high vivid valleys of the Jura to make for us those grind-stone like masses of cavernous Gruyère; sitting here are you not conscious of a rhythm running through it all, of a dignity, even of an epic—cheese?”
“Well,” he went on, “I’ve come to hale you from all this source of inspiration to a more sordid environment. There’s a spare stool in the counting-house I think you might ornament.”
“I’ll be glad of a change, sir.”
“Good. By the way, where are you living?”
“Hammersmith, sir.”