Night after night, as the dusk was beginning to throw its pall11 over the great lonely desert of London—one vast frigid12 expanse of living souls that knew and cared nothing about him—Ernest turned back, foot-sore and heart-sick, to the cheery little lodgings in the short side-street at Holloway. There good Mrs. Halliss, whose hard face seemed to grow softer the longer you looked at it, had a warm clip of tea always ready against his coming: and Edie, with wee Dot sleeping placidly13 on her arm, stood at the door to welcome him back again in wife-like fashion. The flowers in the window bloomed bright and gay in the tiny parlour: and Edie, with her motherly cares for little Dot, seemed more like herself than ever she had done before since poor Harry’s death had clouded the morning of her happy lifetime. But to Ernest, even that pretty picture of the young mother and her sleeping baby looked only like one more reminder14 of the terrible burden he had unavoidably yet too lightly taken upon him. Those two dear lives depended wholly upon him for their daily bread, and where that daily bread was ever to come from he had absolutely not the slightest notion.
There is no place in which it is more utterly15 dreary16 to be quite friendless than in teeming17 London. Still, they were not absolutely friendless even in that great lurid18 throng19 of jarring humanity, all eagerly intent on its own business, and none of it troubling its collective head about two such nonentities20 as Ernest and Edie. Ronald used to come round daily to see them and cheer them up with his quiet confidence in the Disposer of all things: and Arthur Berkeley, neglecting his West End invitations and his lady admirers, used to drop in often of an evening for a friendly chat and a rational suggestion or two.
‘Why don’t you try journalism21, Le Breton?’ he said to Ernest one night, as they sat discussing possibilities for the future in the little parlour together. ‘Literature in some form or other’s clearly the best thing for a man like you to turn his hand to. It demands less compliance22 with conventional rules than any other profession. No editor or publisher would ever dream of dismissing you, for example, because you invited your firebrand friend Max Schurz to dinner. On the contrary, if it comes to that, he’d ask you what Herr Max thought about the future of trades unions and the socialist2 movement in Germany, and he’d advise you to turn it into a column and a half of copy, with a large type sensational23 heading, “A Communistic Leader Interviewed. From our Special Correspondent.”’
‘But it’s such a very useless, unsocialistic trade,’ Ernest answered doubtfully. ‘Do you think it would be quite right, Arthur, for a man to try and earn money by it? Of course it isn’t much worse than school-mastering, I dare say; nobody can say he’s performing a very useful function for the world by hammering a few lines of Ovid into the skull24 of poor stupid Blenkinsopp major, who after all will only use what he calls his education, if he uses it in any way at all, to enable him to make rather more money than any other tobacco-pipe manufacturer in the entire trade. Still, one does feel for all that, that mere writing of books and papers is a very unsatisfactory kind of work for an ethical25 being to perform for humanity. How much better, now, if one could only be a farm-labourer or a shoemaker!’
Arthur Berkeley looked across at him half angrily. ‘My dear Ernest,’ he said, in a severer voice than he often used, ‘the time has gone by now for this economical puritanism of yours. It won’t do any longer. You have to think of your child and of Mrs. Le Breton. Your first duty is to earn a livelihood for them and yourself; when you’ve done that satisfactorily, you may begin to think of the claims of humanity. Don’t be vexed26 with me, my dear fellow, if I speak to you very plainly. You’ve lost your place at Pilbury because you wouldn’t be practical. You might have known they wouldn’t let you go hobnobbing publicly before the very eyes of boys and parents with a firebrand German Socialist. Mind, I don’t say anything against Herr Schurz myself—what little I know about him is all in his favour—that he’s a thorn in the side of those odious27 prigs, the political economists28. I’ve often noticed that when a man wants to dogmatise to his heart’s content without fear of contradiction, he invariably calls himself a political economist29. Then if people differ from him, he smiles at them the benign30 smile of superior wisdom, and says superciliously31, “Ah, I see you don’t understand political economy!” Now, your Herr Schurz is a dissenter32 among economists, I believe—a sort of embryo33 Luther come to tilt34 with a German toy lance against their economical infallibilities; and I’m told he knows more about the subject than all the rest of them put together. Of course, if you like him and respect him—and I know you have one superstition35 left, my dear fellow—there’s no reason on earth why you shouldn’t do so; but you mustn’t parade him too openly before the scandalised faces of respectable Pilbury. In future, you must be practical. Turn your hand to whatever you can get to do, and leave humanity at large to settle the debtor36 and creditor37 account with you hereafter.’
‘I’ll do my best, Berkeley,’ Ernest answered submissively; ‘and if you like, I’ll strangle my conscience and try my hand at journalism.’
‘Do, there’s a good man,’ Arthur Berkeley said, delighted at his late conversion38. ‘I know two or three editor fellows pretty well, and if you’ll only turn off something, I’ll ask them to have a look at it.’
Next morning, at breakfast, Ernest discussed the possibilities of this new venture very seriously with sympathising Edie. ‘It’s a great risk,’ he said, turning it over dubiously39 in his mind; ‘a great risk, and a great expense too, for nothing certain. Let me see, there’ll be a quire of white foolscap to start with; that’ll be a shilling—a lot of money as things go at present, Edie, isn’t it?’
‘Why not begin with half a quire, Ernest?’ said his little wife, cautiously. ‘That’d be only sixpence, you see.’
‘Do they halve40 quires at the stationer’s, I wonder?’ Ernest went on still mentally reckoning. ‘Well, suppose we put it at sixpence. Then we’ve got pens already by us, but not any ink—that’s a penny—and there’s postage, say about twopence; total ninepence. That’s a lot of money, isn’t it, now, for a pure uncertainty41?’
‘I’d try it, Ernest dear, if I were you,’ Edie answered. ‘We must do something, mustn’t we, dear, to earn our living.’
‘We must,’ Ernest said, sighing. ‘I wish it were anything but that; but I suppose what must be must be. Well, I’ll go out a walk by myself in the quietest streets I can find, and try if I can think of anything on earth a man can write about. Arthur Berkeley says I ought to begin with a social article for a paper; he knows the “Morning Intelligence” people, and he’ll try to get them to take something if I can manage to write it. I wonder what on earth would do as a social article for the “Morning Intelligence”! If only they’d let me write about socialism now! but Arthur says they won’t take that; the times aren’t yet ripe for it. I wish they were, Edie, I wish they were; and then perhaps you and I would find some way to earn ourselves a decent living.’
So Ernest went out, and ruminated42 quietly by himself, as well as he was able, in the least frequented streets of Holloway and Highgate. After about half an hour’s excogitation, a brilliant idea at last flashed across him; he had found in a tobacconist’s window something to write about! Your practised journalist doesn’t need to think at all; he writes whatever comes uppermost without the unnecessarily troublesome preliminary of deliberate thinking. But Ernest Le Breton was only making his first experiment in the queer craft, and he looked upon himself as a veritable Watt43 or Columbus when he had actually discovered that hitherto unknown object, a thing to write about. He went straight back to good Mrs. Halliss’s with his discovery whirling in his head, stopping only by the way at the stationer’s, to invest in half a quire of white foolscap. ‘The best’s a shilling a quire, mister,’ said the shopman; ‘second best, tenpence.’ Communist as he was, Ernest couldn’t help noticing the unusual mode of address; but he took the cheaper quality quietly, and congratulated himself on his good luck in saving a penny upon the original estimate.
When he got home, he sat down at the plain wooden table by the window, and began with nervous haste to write away rapidly at his first literary venture. Edie sat by in her little low chair and watched him closely with breathless interest. Would it be a success or a failure? That was the question they were both every moment intently asking themselves. It was not a very important piece of literary workmanship, to be sure; only a social leader for a newspaper, to be carelessly skimmed to-day and used to light the fire to-morrow, if even that; and yet had it been the greatest masterpiece ever produced by the human intellect Ernest could not have worked at it with more conscientious44 care, or Edie watched him with profounder admiration45. When Shakespeare sat down to write ‘Hamlet,’ it may be confidently asserted that neither Mistress Anne Shakespeare nor anybody else awaited the result of his literary labours with such unbounded and feverish46 anxiety. By the time Ernest had finished his second sheet of white foolscap—much erased47 and interlined with interminable additions and corrections—Edie ventured for a moment briefly48 to interrupt his creative efforts. ‘Don’t you think you’ve written as much as makes an ordinary leader now, Ernest?’ she asked, apologetically. ‘I’m afraid you’re making it a good deal longer than it ought to be by rights.’
‘I’m sure I don’t know, Edie,’ Ernest answered, gazing at the two laboured sheets with infinite dubitation and searching of spirit. ‘I suppose one ought properly to count the words in an average leader, and make it the same length as they always are in the “Morning Intelligence.” I think they generally run to just a column.’
‘Of course you ought, dear,’ Edie answered. ‘Run out this minute and buy one before you go a single line further.’
Ernest looked back at his two pages of foolscap somewhat ruefully. ‘That’s a dreadful bore,’ he said, with a sigh: ‘it’ll just run away with the whole penny I thought I’d managed to save in getting the second quality of foolscap for fivepence. However, I suppose it can’t be helped, and after all, if the thing succeeds, one can look upon the penny in the light of an investment. It’s throwing a sprat to catch a whale, as the proverb says: though I’m afraid Herr Max would say that that was a very immoral49 capitalist proverb. How horribly low we must be sinking, Edie, when we come to use the anti-social language of those dreadful capitalists!’
‘I don’t think capitalists deal much in proverbs, dear,’ said Edie, smiling in spite of herself; ‘but you needn’t go to the expense of buying a “Morning Intelligence,” I dare say, for perhaps Mrs. Halliss may have an old one in the house; or if not, she might be able to borrow one from a neighbour. She has a perfect genius for borrowing, Mrs. Halliss; she borrows everything I want from somebody or other. I’ll just run down to the kitchen this minute and ask her.’
In a few seconds Edie returned in triumph with an old soiled and torn copy of the ‘Morning Intelligence,’ duly procured50 by the ingenious Mrs. Halliss from the dairy opposite. It was a decidedly antiquated51 copy, and it had only too obviously been employed by its late possessor to wrap up a couple of kippered herrings; but it was still entire, so far as regarded the leaders at least, and it was perfectly52 legible in spite of its ancient and fish-like smell. To ensure accuracy, Ernest and Edie took a leader apiece, and carefully counted up the number of words that went to the column. They came on an average to fifteen hundred. Then Ernest counted his own manuscript with equal care—no easy task when one took into consideration the interlined or erased passages—and, to his infinite disgust, discovered that it only extended to seven hundred and fifty words. ‘Why, Edie,’ he said, in a very disappointed tone, ‘how little it prints into! I should certainly have thought I’d written at least a whole column. And the worst of it is, I believe I’ve really said all I have to say about the subject.’
‘What is it, Ernest dear?’ asked Edie.
‘Italian organ-boys,’ Ernest answered. ‘I saw on a placard in the news shop that one of them had been taken to a hospital in a starving condition.’ He hardly liked to tell even Edie that he had stood for ten minutes at a tobacconist’s window and read the case in a sheet of ‘Lloyd’s News’ conspicuously53 hung up there for public perusal54.
‘Well, let me hear what you have written, Ernest dear, and then see if you couldn’t expand it.’
Ernest read it over most seriously and solemnly—it was only a social leader, of the ordinary commonplace talky-talky sort; but to those two poor young people it was a very serious and solemn matter indeed—no less a matter than their own two lives and little Dot’s into the bargain. It began with the particular case of the particular organ-boy who formed the peg55 on which the whole article was to be hung; it went on to discourse56 on the lives and manners of organ-boys in general; it digressed into the natural history of the common guinea-pig, with an excursus on the scenery of the Lower Apennines; and it finished off with sundry57 abstract observations on the musical aspect of the barrel-organ and the aesthetic58 value of hurdygurdy performances. Edie listened to it all with deep attention.
‘It’s very good, Ernest dear,’ she said, with wifely admiration, as soon as he had finished. ‘Just like a real leader exactly; only, do you know, there aren’t any anecdotes59 in it. I think a social leader of that sort ought always to have a lot of anecdotes. Couldn’t you manage to bring in something about Fox and Sheridan, or about George IV. and Beau Brummel? They always do, you know, in most of the papers.’
Ernest gazed at her in silent admiration. ‘How clever of you, Edie,’ he said, ‘to think of that! Why, of course there ought to be some anecdotes. They’re the very breath of life to this sort of meaningless writing. Only, somehow, George IV. and Beau Brummel don’t seem exactly relevant to Italian organ-grinders, now do they?’
‘I thought,’ said Edie, with hardly a touch of unintentional satire61, ‘that the best thing about anecdotes of that kind in a newspaper was their utter irrelevancy62. But if Beau Brummel won’t do, couldn’t you manage to work in Guicciardini and the galleys63? That’s strictly64 Italian, you know, and therefore relevant; and I’m sure the newspaper leaders are extremely fond of that story about Guiccardini.’
‘They are,’ Ernest answered,'most undoubtedly65; but perhaps for that very reason readers may be beginning to get just a little tired of it by this time.’
‘I don’t think the readers matter much,’ said Edie, with a brilliant, flash of practical common-sense; ‘at least, not nearly half as much, Ernest, as the editor.’
‘Quite true,’ Ernest replied, with another admiring look; ‘but probably the editor more or less consults the taste and feelings of the readers. Well, I’ll try to expand it a bit, and I’ll manage to drag in an anecdote60 or two somehow—if not Guicciardini, at least something or other else Italian. You see Italy’s a tolerably rich subject, because you can do any amount about Raffael, and Michael Angelo, and Leonardo, and so forth66, not to mention Botticelli. The papers have made a dreadful run lately on Botticelli.’
So Ernest sat down once more at the table by the window, and began to interlard the manuscript with such allusions67 to Italy and the Italians as could suggest themselves on the spur of the moment to his anxious imagination. At the end of half an hour—about the time a practised hand would have occupied in writing the whole article—he counted words once more, and found there were still two hundred wanting. Two hundred more words to say about Italian organ-boys! Alas68 for the untrained human fancy! A master leader writer at the office of the ‘Morning Intelligence’ could have run on for ever on so fertile and suggestive a theme—a theme pregnant with unlimited69 openings for all the cheap commonplaces of abstract journalistic philanthropy; but poor Ernest, a ‘prentice hand at the trade, had yet to learn the fluent trick of the accomplished70 news purveyor71; he absolutely could not write without thinking about it. A third time he was obliged to recommit his manuscript, and a third time to count the words over. This time, oh joy, the reckoning came out as close as possible to the even fifteen hundred. Ernest gave a sigh of relief, and turned to read it all over again, as finally enlarged and amended72, to the critical ears of admiring Edie.
There was anecdote enough now, in all conscience, in the article; and allusions enough to stock a whole week’s numbers of the ‘Morning Intelligence.’ Edie listened to the whole tirade73 with an air of the most severe and impartial74 criticism. When Ernest had finished, she rose up and kissed him. ‘I’m sure it’ll do, Ernest,’ she said confidently. ‘It’s exactly like a real leader. It’s quite beautiful—a great deal more beautiful, in fact, than anything else I ever read in a newspaper: it’s good enough to print in a volume.’
‘I hope the editor’ll think so,’ Ernest answered, dubiously. ‘If not, what a lot of valuable tenpenny foolscap wasted all for nothing! Now I must write it all out again clean, Edie, on fresh pieces.’
Newspaper men, it must be candidly75 admitted, do not usually write their articles twice over; indeed, to judge by the result, it may be charitably believed that they do not even, as a rule, read them through when written, to correct their frequent accidental slips of logic76 or English; but Ernest wrote out his organ-boy leader in his most legible and roundest hand, copperplate fashion, with as much care and precision as if it were his first copy for presentation to the stern writing-master of a Draconian77 board school. ‘Editors are more likely to read your manuscript if it’s legible, I should think, Edie,’ he said, looking up at her with more of hope in his face than had often been seen in it of late. ‘I wonder, now, whether they prefer it sent in a long envelope, folded in three; or in a square envelope, folded twice over; or in a paper cover, open like a pamphlet. There must be some recognised professional way of doing it, and I should think one’s more likely to get it taken if one sends it in the regular professional fashion, than if one makes it look too amateurish78. I shall go in for the long envelope; at any rate, if not journalistic, it’s at least official.’
The editor of the ‘Morning Intelligence’ is an important personage in contemporary politics, and a man of more real weight in the world than half-a-dozen Members of Parliament for obscure country boroughs79; but even that mighty81 man himself would probably have been a little surprised as well as amused (if he could have seen it) at the way in which Ernest and Edie Le Breton anxiously endeavoured to conciliate beforehand his merest possible personal fads82 and fancies. As a matter of fact, the question of the particular paper on which the article was written mattered to him absolutely less than nothing, inasmuch as he never looked at anything whatsoever83 until it had been set up in type for him to pass off-hand judgment84 upon its faults or its merits. His time was far too valuable to be lightly wasted on the task of deciphering crabbed85 manuscript.
In the afternoon, Berkeley called to see whether Ernest had followed his suggestion, and was agreeably surprised to find a whole article already finished. He glanced through the neatly86 written pages, and was still more pleased to discover that Ernest, with an unsuspected outburst of practicality and practicability, had really hit upon a possible subject. ‘This may do, Ernest,’ he said with a sigh of relief. ‘I dare say it will. I know Lancaster wants leader writers, and I think this is quite good enough to serve his turn. I’ve spoken to him about you: come round with me now—he’ll be at the office by four o’clock—and we’ll see what we can do for you. It’s absolutely useless sending anything to the editor of a daily paper without an introduction. You might write with the pen of the angel Gabriel, or turn out leaders which were a judicious88 mean between Gladstone, Burke, and Herbert Spencer, and it would profit you nothing, for the simple reason that he hasn’t got the time to read them. He would toss Junius and Montesquieu into the waste paper basket, and accept copy on the shocking murder in the Borough80 Road from one of his regular contributors instead. He can’t help himself: and what you must do, Ernest, is to become one of the regular ring, and combine to keep Junius and Montesquieu permanently89 outside.’
‘The struggle for existence gives no quarter,’ Ernest said sadly with half a sigh.
‘And takes none,’ Berkeley answered quickly. ‘So for your wife’s sake you must try your best to fight your way through it on your own account, for yourself and your family.’
The editor of the ‘Morning Intelligence,’ Mr. Hugh Lancaster, was a short, thick-set, hard-headed sort of man, with a kindly90 twinkle in his keen grey eyes, and a harassed91 smile playing continually around the corners of his firm and dose mouth. He looked as though he was naturally a good-humoured benevolent92 person, overdriven at the journalistic mill till half the life was worn out of him, leaving the benevolence93 as a wearied remnant, without energy enough to express itself in any other fashion than by the perpetual harassed smile. He saw Arthur Berkeley and Ernest Le Breton at once in his own sanctum, and took the manuscript from their hands with a languid air of perfect resignation. ‘This is the friend you spoke87 of, is it, Berkeley?’ he said in a wearied way. ‘Well, well, we’ll see what we can do for him.’ At the same time he rang a tiny hand-bell. A boy, rather the worse for printer’s ink, appeared at the summons. Mr. Lancaster handed him Ernest’s careful manuscript unopened, with the laconic94 order, ‘Press. Proof immediately.’ The boy took it without a word. ‘I’m very busy now,’ Mr. Lancaster went on in the same wearied dispirited manner: ‘come again in thirty-five minutes. Jones, show these gentlemen into a room somewhere.’ And the editor fell back forthwith into his easy-chair and his original attitude of listless indifference95. Berkeley and Ernest followed the boy into a bare back room, furnished only with a deal table and two chairs, and there anxiously awaited the result of the editor’s critical examination.
‘Don’t be afraid of Lancaster, Ernest,’ Arthur said kindly. ‘His manner’s awfully cold, I know, but he means well, and I really believe he’d go out of his way, rather than not, to do a kindness for anybody he thought actually in want of occupation. With most men, that’s an excellent reason for not employing you: with Lancaster I do truly think it’s a genuine recommendation.’
At the end of thirty-five minutes the grimy-faced office-boy returned with a friendly nod. ‘Editor’ll see you,’ he said, with the Spartan96 brevity of the journalistic world—nobody connected with newspapers ever writes or speaks a single word unnecessarily, if he isn’t going to be paid for it at so much per thousand—and Ernest followed him, trembling from head to foot, into Mr. Lancaster’s private study.
The great editor took up the steaming hot proof that had just been brought him, and glanced down it carelessly with a rapid scrutiny97. Then he turned to Ernest, and said in a dreamy fashion, ‘This will do. We’ll print this to-morrow. You may send us a middle very occasionally. Come here at four o’clock, when a subject suggests itself to you, and speak to me about it. My time’s very fully9 occupied. Good morning, Mr. Le Breton. Berkeley, stop a minute, I want to talk with you.’
It was all done in a moment, and almost before Ernest knew what had happened he was out in the street again, with tears filling his eyes, and joy his heart, for here at last was bread, bread, bread, for Edie and the baby! He ran without stopping all the way back to Holloway, rushed headlong into the house and fell into Edie’s arms, calling out wildly, ‘He’s taken it! He’s taken it!’ Edie kissed him half-a-dozen times over, and answered bravely, ‘I knew he would, Ernest. It was such a splendid article.’ And yet thousands of readers of the ‘Morning Intelligence’ next day skimmed lightly over the leader on organ-boys in their ordinary casual fashion, without even thinking what hopes and fears and doubts and terrors had gone to the making of that very commonplace bit of newspaper rhetoric98. For if the truth must be told, Edie’s first admiring criticism was perfectly correct, and Ernest Le Breton’s leader was just for all the world exactly the same as anybody else’s.
Meanwhile, Arthur Berkeley had stayed behind as requested in Mr. Lancaster’s study, and waited to hear what Mr. Lancaster had to say to him. The editor looked up at him wearily from his chair, passed his bread hand slowly across his bewildered forehead, and then said the one word, ‘Poor?’
‘Nothing on earth to do,’ Berkeley answered.
‘He might make a journalist, perhaps,’ the editor said, sleepily. ‘This social’s up to the average. At any rate, I’ll do my very best for him. But he can’t live upon socials. We have too many social men already. What can he do? That’s the question. It won’t do to say he can write pretty nearly as well about anything that turns up as any other man in England can do. I can get a hundred young fellows in the Temple to do that, any day. The real question’s this: is there anything he can write about a great deal better than all the other men in all England put together?’
‘Yes, there is,’ Berkeley answered with commendable99 promptitude, undismayed by Mr. Lancaster’s excessive requirements. ‘He knows more about communists, socialists100, and political exiles generally, than anybody else in the whole of London.’
‘Good,’ the editor answered, brightening up, and speaking for a moment a little less languidly. ‘That’s good. There’s this man Schurz, now, the German agitator101. He’s going to be tried soon for a seditious libel it seems, and he’ll be sent to prison, naturally. Now, does your friend know anything at all of this fellow?’
‘He knows him personally and intimately,’ Berkeley replied, delighted to find that the card which had proved so bad a one at Pilbury Regis was turning up trumps102 in the more Bohemian neighbourhood of the Temple and Fleet Street. ‘He can give you any information you want about Schurz or any of the rest of those people. He has associated with them all familiarly for the last six or seven years.’
‘Then he takes an interest in politics,’ said Mr. Lancaster, almost waking up now. ‘That’s good again. It’s so very difficult to find young men nowadays, able to write, who take a genuine interest in politics. They all go off after literature and science and aesthetics103, and other dry uninteresting subjects. Now, what does your average intelligent daily paper reader care, I should like to know, about literature and science and aesthetics and so forth? Well, he’ll do, I’ve very little doubt: at any rate, I’ll give him a trial. Perhaps he might be able to undertake this Great Widgerly disenfranchising case. Stop! he’s poor, isn’t he? I daresay he’d just as soon not wait for his money for this social. In the ordinary course, he wouldn’t get paid till the end of the quarter; but I’ll give you a cheque to take back to him now; perhaps he wants it. Poor fellow, poor fellow! he really looks very delicate. Depend upon it, Berkeley, I’ll do anything on earth for him, if only he’ll write tolerably.’
‘You’re awfully good,’ Arthur said, taking the proffered104 cheque gratefully. ‘I’m sure the money will be of great use to him: and it’s very kind indeed of you to have thought of it.’
‘Not at all, not at all,'the editor answered, collapsing105 dreamily. ‘Good morning, good morning.’
At Mrs. Halliss’s lodgings in Holloway, Edie was just saying to Ernest over their simple tea, ‘I wonder what they’ll give you for it, Ernest.’ And Ernest had just answered, big with hope, ‘Well, I should think it would be quite ten shillings, but I shouldn’t be surprised, Edie, if it was as much as a pound;’ when the door opened, and in walked Arthur Berkeley, with a cheque in his hand, which he laid by Edie’s teacup. Edie took it up and gave a little cry of delight and astonishment106. Ernest caught it from her hand in his eagerness, and gazed upon it with dazed and swimming vision. Did he read the words aright, and could it be really, ‘Pay E. Le Breton, Esq., or order, three guineas’? Three guineas! Three guineas! Three real actual positive gold and silver guineas! It was almost too much for either of them to believe, and all for a single morning’s light labour! What a perfect Eldorado of wealth and happiness seemed now to be opening out unexpectedly before them!
So much Arthur Berkeley, his own eyes glistening107 too with a sympathetic moisture, saw and heard before he went away in a happier mood and left them to their own domestic congratulations. But he did not see or know the reaction that came in the dead of night, after all that day’s unwonted excitement, to poor, sickening, weary, over-burdened Ernest. Even Edie never knew it all, for Ernest was careful to hide it as much as possible from her knowledge. But he knew himself, though he would not even light the candle to see it, that he had got those three glorious guineas—the guineas they had so delighted in—with something more than a morning’s labour. He had had to pay for them, not figuratively but literally108, with some of his very life-blood.
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Oxford
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livelihood
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placidly
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reminder
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utterly
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teeming
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| adj.丰富的v.充满( teem的现在分词 )；到处都是；（指水、雨等）暴降；倾注 | |
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lurid
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| adj.可怕的；血红的；苍白的 | |
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throng
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| n.人群，群众；v.拥挤，群集 | |
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nonentities
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| n.无足轻重的人( nonentity的名词复数 )；蝼蚁 | |
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journalism
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| n.新闻工作，报业 | |
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compliance
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| n.顺从；服从；附和；屈从 | |
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sensational
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| adj.使人感动的，非常好的，轰动的，耸人听闻的 | |
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skull
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| n.头骨；颅骨 | |
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ethical
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| adj.伦理的，道德的，合乎道德的 | |
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vexed
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| adj.争论不休的；（指问题等）棘手的；争论不休的问题；烦恼的v.使烦恼( vex的过去式和过去分词 )；使苦恼；使生气；详细讨论 | |
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odious
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| adj.可憎的，讨厌的 | |
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economists
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| n.经济学家，经济专家( economist的名词复数 ) | |
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economist
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| n.经济学家，经济专家，节俭的人 | |
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benign
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| adj.善良的，慈祥的；良性的，无危险的 | |
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superciliously
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| adv.高傲地；傲慢地 | |
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dissenter
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| n.反对者 | |
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embryo
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| n.胚胎，萌芽的事物 | |
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34
tilt
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| v.(使)倾侧；(使)倾斜；n.倾侧；倾斜 | |
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superstition
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| n.迷信，迷信行为 | |
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debtor
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| n.借方，债务人 | |
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37
creditor
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| n.债仅人，债主，贷方 | |
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38
conversion
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| n.转化，转换，转变 | |
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39
dubiously
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| adv.可疑地，怀疑地 | |
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40
halve
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| vt.分成两半，平分；减少到一半 | |
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41
uncertainty
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| n.易变，靠不住，不确知，不确定的事物 | |
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ruminated
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| v.沉思( ruminate的过去式和过去分词 )；反复考虑；反刍；倒嚼 | |
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43
watt
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| n.瓦，瓦特 | |
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conscientious
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| adj.审慎正直的，认真的，本着良心的 | |
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admiration
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| n.钦佩，赞美，羡慕 | |
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feverish
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| adj.发烧的，狂热的，兴奋的 | |
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erased
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| v.擦掉( erase的过去式和过去分词 )；抹去；清除 | |
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briefly
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| adv.简单地，简短地 | |
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immoral
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| adj.不道德的，淫荡的，荒淫的，有伤风化的 | |
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procured
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| v.（努力）取得， （设法）获得( procure的过去式和过去分词 )；拉皮条 | |
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antiquated
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| adj.陈旧的，过时的 | |
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perfectly
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| adv.完美地，无可非议地，彻底地 | |
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conspicuously
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| ad.明显地，惹人注目地 | |
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perusal
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| n.细读，熟读；目测 | |
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peg
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| n.木栓，木钉；vt.用木钉钉，用短桩固定 | |
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discourse
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| n.论文，演说；谈话；话语；vi.讲述，著述 | |
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sundry
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| adj.各式各样的，种种的 | |
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aesthetic
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| adj.美学的，审美的，有美感 | |
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anecdotes
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| n.掌故，趣闻，轶事( anecdote的名词复数 ) | |
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anecdote
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| n.轶事，趣闻，短故事 | |
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satire
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| n.讽刺，讽刺文学，讽刺作品 | |
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irrelevancy
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| n.不恰当，离题，不相干的事物 | |
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galleys
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| n.平底大船，战舰( galley的名词复数 )；（船上或航空器上的）厨房 | |
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strictly
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| adv.严厉地，严格地；严密地 | |
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undoubtedly
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| adv.确实地，无疑地 | |
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forth
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| adv.向前；向外，往外 | |
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allusions
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| 暗指，间接提到( allusion的名词复数 ) | |
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68
alas
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| int.唉(表示悲伤、忧愁、恐惧等) | |
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unlimited
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| adj.无限的，不受控制的，无条件的 | |
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accomplished
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| adj.有才艺的；有造诣的；达到了的 | |
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purveyor
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| n.承办商，伙食承办商 | |
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72
Amended
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| adj. 修正的 动词amend的过去式和过去分词 | |
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73
tirade
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| n.冗长的攻击性演说 | |
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74
impartial
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| adj.(in,to)公正的，无偏见的 | |
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candidly
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| adv.坦率地，直率而诚恳地 | |
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76
logic
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| n.逻辑(学)；逻辑性 | |
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draconian
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| adj.严苛的；苛刻的；严酷的；龙一样的 | |
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amateurish
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| n.业余爱好的，不熟练的 | |
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boroughs
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| （尤指大伦敦的）行政区( borough的名词复数 )； 议会中有代表的市镇 | |
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borough
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| n.享有自治权的市镇；(英)自治市镇 | |
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81
mighty
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| adj.强有力的；巨大的 | |
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82
fads
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| n.一时的流行，一时的风尚( fad的名词复数 ) | |
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83
whatsoever
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| adv.（用于否定句中以加强语气）任何；pron.无论什么 | |
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84
judgment
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| n.审判；判断力，识别力，看法，意见 | |
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85
crabbed
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| adj.脾气坏的；易怒的；（指字迹）难辨认的；（字迹等）难辨认的v.捕蟹( crab的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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neatly
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| adv.整洁地，干净地，灵巧地，熟练地 | |
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spoke
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| n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说 | |
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88
judicious
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| adj.明智的，明断的，能作出明智决定的 | |
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89
permanently
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| adv.永恒地，永久地，固定不变地 | |
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90
kindly
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| adj.和蔼的，温和的，爽快的；adv.温和地，亲切地 | |
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harassed
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| adj. 疲倦的，厌烦的 动词harass的过去式和过去分词 | |
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92
benevolent
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| adj.仁慈的，乐善好施的 | |
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93
benevolence
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| n.慈悲，捐助 | |
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94
laconic
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| adj.简洁的；精练的 | |
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indifference
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| n.不感兴趣，不关心，冷淡，不在乎 | |
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96
spartan
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| adj.简朴的，刻苦的；n.斯巴达；斯巴达式的人 | |
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scrutiny
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| n.详细检查，仔细观察 | |
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98
rhetoric
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| n.修辞学，浮夸之言语 | |
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99
commendable
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| adj.值得称赞的 | |
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100
socialists
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| 社会主义者( socialist的名词复数 ) | |
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101
agitator
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| n.鼓动者；搅拌器 | |
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102
trumps
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| abbr.trumpets 喇叭；小号；喇叭形状的东西；喇叭筒v.（牌戏）出王牌赢（一牌或一墩）( trump的过去式 )；吹号公告，吹号庆祝；吹喇叭；捏造 | |
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103
aesthetics
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| n.(尤指艺术方面之)美学，审美学 | |
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104
proffered
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| v.提供，贡献，提出( proffer的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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105
collapsing
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| 压扁[平]，毁坏，断裂 | |
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106
astonishment
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| n.惊奇，惊异 | |
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107
glistening
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| adj.闪耀的，反光的v.湿物闪耀，闪亮( glisten的现在分词 ) | |
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108
literally
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| adv.照字面意义，逐字地；确实 | |
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