My name is Edward George Eden. I was born at Trentham, in Staffordshire, my father being employed in the gardens there. I lost my mother when I was three years old, and my father when I was five, my uncle, George Eden, then adopting me as his own son. He was a single man, self-educated, and well known in Birmingham as an enterprising journalist; he educated me generously, fired my ambition to succeed in the world, and at his death, which happened four years ago, left me his entire fortune, a matter of about five hundred pounds after all outgoing charges were paid. I was then eighteen. He advised me in his will to expend¹ the money in completing my education. I had already chosen the profession of medicine, and through his posthumous² generosity³, and my good fortune in a scholarship competition, I became a medical student at 87University College, London. At the time of the beginning of my story I lodged⁴ at 11A University Street, in a little upper room, very shabbily furnished, and draughty, overlooking the back of Shoolbred’s premises⁶. I used this little room both to live in and sleep in, because I was anxious to eke⁷ out my means to the very last shillingsworth.

I was taking a pair of shoes to be mended at a shop in the Tottenham Court Road when I first encountered the little old man with the yellow face, with whom my life has now become so inextricably entangled⁸. He was standing⁹ on the kerb, and staring at the number on the door in a doubtful way, as I opened it. His eyes—they were dull grey eyes, and reddish under the rims—fell to my face, and his

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