Slowly, surely, steadily¹ I climbed, putting aside all dreams, paying strict attention to business. Often my other self, little Paul of the sad eyes, would seek to lure² me from my work. But for my vehement³ determination never to rest for a moment till I had purchased back my honesty, my desire—growing day by day, till it became almost a physical hunger—to feel again the pressure of Norah's strong white hand in mine, he might possibly have succeeded. Heaven only knows what then he might have made of me: politician, minor⁴ poet, more or less able editor, hampered⁵ by convictions—something most surely of but little service to myself. Now and again, with a week to spare—my humour making holiday, nothing to be done but await patiently its return—I would write stories for my own pleasure. They made no mark; but success in purposeful work is of slower growth. Had I persisted—but there was money to be earned. And by the time my debts were paid, I had established a reputation.

 

“Madness!” argued practical friends. “You would be throwing away a certain fortune for, at the best, a doubtful competence⁷. The one you know you can do, the other—it would be beginning your career all over again.”

 

“You would find it almost impossible now,” explained those who spoke⁸, I knew, words of wisdom, of experience. “The world would never listen to you. Once a humourist always a humourist. As well might a comic actor insist upon playing Hamlet. It might be the best Hamlet ever seen upon the stage; the audience would only laugh—or stop away.”

 

Drawn⁹ by our mutual

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