“I’m so sorry. Let me sell some of my hem-broderie. I sink I catch some money for that.”
“No, I hate to let you do that. Stop! We’ll compromise. Give me what you have and I’ll put it ‘up the spout.’ It will be only for a little while.”
So she gave me a cushion cover, two centre pieces, and some little mats.
“How much money is left?” I asked.
“Only about eleven franc.”
“Hum! That won’t help us much. All right. Leave it to me, and whatever you do, don’t worry. I’ll raise the wind somehow.”
So I took the suitcase, with the pieces of embroidery I had previously bought, and carried the whole thing to the Mont de Piété. I realised seventy francs for the whole thing.
“There you are,” I said on my return. “With the eleven francs you have, that makes eighty-one. You’d better pay the rent for one month only. Then we will have forty francs left. We can struggle along on that for two weeks. By that time something else will be sure to turn up.”
Something did turn up—the very next day. The editor of a cheap Weekly who had already begun to make plans for his special Christmas number, wrote and offered to take my diphtheria story if I would give it a Christmas setting. I growled, and used shocking language, but in the end I laid aside my novel and rechristening the story My Terrible Christmas, I made the necessary changes. Result: another cheque for a guinea.
How she managed to last out the balance of the month on an average of two francs a day I never knew. I discontinued my morning walks, giving all my time to my novel, and thinking of nothing else. I was dimly conscious that once more we were in the “Soup of the Onion” zone, but as I sat down dazed to my meals I scarce knew what I ate. I was all keyed up, with my eyes on the goal. I would compose whole chapters in my dreams, and sleeping or waking, my mind was never off my work.