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‘On Sunday I sent a note to the warehouse, saying that I should not be able to come to business till Monday afternoon. It was the first time I had ever done such a thing, and I knew I could invent some story to excuse myself. Most of that day I spent in bed; I didn’t feel myself, yet it was still a great satisfaction to me that I had got the better of that brute. On Monday at twelve I kept the appointment in Dean Street. Crowther hadn’t come in, and I sat for a few minutes quaking. When he turned up, he was quite cheerful. “Look here!” he said, “will you sell me that picture for thirty pounds?” “What then?” I asked. “Why, then you can pay me another thirty pounds, and I’ll give you twelve months to do it in. You shall have your forty guineas at once.” I tried to reflect, but I was too agitated. However, I saw that to pay thirty pounds in a year meant that I must live on about eight shillings a week. “I don’t know how I’m to do it,” I said. He looked at me. “Well, I won’t be hard on you. Look here, you shall pay me six bob a week till the thirty quid’s made up. Now, you can do that?” Yes I could do that, and I agreed. In another ten minutes our business was settled,–my signature was so shaky that I might safely have disowned it afterwards. Then we had a drink at a neighbouring pub, and we walked together towards Coventry Street. Crowther was to wait for me near the picture-dealer’s.

‘I entered with a bold step, promising myself pleasure in a new triumph over the brute. But he wasn’t there. I saw only an under-strapper. I had no time to lose, for I must be at business by two o’clock. I paid the money–notes and gold–and took away the picture under my arm. Of course, it had been removed from the frame in which I first saw it, and the assistant wrapped it up for me in brown paper. At the street corner I surrendered it to Crowther. “Come and see me after business to-morrow,” he said, “I should like to have a bit more talk with you.”

‘So I had come out of it gloriously. I cared nothing about losing the picture, and I didn’t grieve over the six shillings a week that I should have to pay for the next two years. If I went into that gallery again, I should be treated respectfully–that was sufficient.’

He laughed, and for a minute or two we sat silent. From the inn sounded rustic voices; the village worthies were gathered for their evening conversation.

‘That’s the best part of my story,’ said Ireton at length. ‘What followed is commonplace. Still, you might like to hear how I bridged the gulf, from fourteen shillings a week to the position I now hold. Well, I got very intimate with Crowther, and found him really a very decent fellow. He had a good many irons in the fire. Besides his loan office, which paid much better than you would imagine, he had a turf commission agency, which brought him in a good deal of money, and shortly after I met him he became part proprietor of a club in Soho. He very soon talked to me in the frankest way of all his doings; I think he was glad to be on friendly terms with me simply because I was better educated and could behave decently. I don’t think he ever did anything illegal, and he had plenty of good feeling,–but that didn’t prevent him from squeezing eighty per cent, or so out of many a poor devil who had borrowed to save himself or his family from starvation. That was all business; he drew the sharpest distinctions between business and private relations, and was very ignorant. I never knew a man so superstitious. Every day he consulted signs and omens. For instance, to decide whether the day was to be lucky for him–in betting and so on–he would stand at a street corner and count the number of white horses that passed in five minutes; if he had made up his mind on an even number, and an even number passed, then he felt safe in following his impulses for the day; if the number were odd, he would do little or no speculation. When he was going to play cards for money, he would find a beggar and give him something, even if he had to walk a great distance to do it. He often used to visit an Italian who kept fortune-telling canaries, and he always followed the advice he got. It put him out desperately if he saw the new moon through glass, or over his left shoulder. There was no end to his superstitions, and, whether by reason of them or in spite of them, he certainly prospered. When he died, ten or twelve years ago, he left fifteen thousand pounds.