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‘I’m really ashamed to propose nothing better to a man of your standing. But–well, I’m making a start, you see, and the fact of the matter is that, just at present, I could very well manage to do all the work myself. Still, if you think it worth your while, there’s no doubt we shall get on capitally together, and, of course, I need not say, as soon as our progress justifies it, we must come to new arrangements. A matter of six or seven hours a day will be all I shall ask of you at present. For my own part, I work chiefly at night.’

CHAPTER II

By the end of the first month Topham was working, not six or seven, but ten or twelve hours a day, and his spells of labour only lengthened as time went on. Seeing himself victimised, he one day alluded to the promise of better terms, but Starkey turned sour.

‘You surprise me, Topham. Here are we, practically partners, doing our best to make this thing a success, and all at once you spring upon me an unreasonable demand. You know how expensive these rooms are–for we must have a decent address. If you are dissatisfied, say so, and give me time to look out for some one else.’

Topham was afraid of the street, and that his employer well knew. The conversation ended in mutual sullenness, which thenceforward became the note of their colloquies. Starkey felt himself a victim of ingratitude, and consequently threw even more work upon his helpless assistant. That the work was so conscientiously done did not at all astonish him. Now and then he gave himself the satisfaction of finding fault: just to remind Topham that his bread depended on another’s goodwill. Congenial indolence grew upon him, but he talked only the more of his ceaseless exertions. Sometimes in the evening he would throw up his arms, yawn wearily, and declare that so much toil with such paltry results was a heart-breaking thing.

Topham stared sullenly at the sixpence. This was but the latest of many insults, yet never before had he so tasted the shame of his subjection. Though he was earning a living, and a right to self-respect, more strenuously than Starkey ever had, this fellow made him feel like a mendicant. His nerves quivered, he struck the table fiercely, shouting within himself, ‘Brute! Cad!’ Then he pocketed the coin and got on with his duties.

It was toil of a peculiarly wearisome and enervating kind. Starkey’s advertisements, which were chiefly in the country newspapers, put him in communication with persons of both sexes, and of any age from seventeen onwards, the characteristic common to them all being inexperience and intellectual helplessness. Most of these correspondents desired to pass some examination; a few aimed–or professed to aim–merely at self-improvement, or what they called ‘culture.’ Starkey, of course, undertook tuition in any subject, to any end, stipulating only that his fees should be paid in advance. Throughout the day his slave had been correcting Latin and Greek exercises, papers in mathematical or physical science, answers to historical questions: all elementary and many grotesquely bad. On completing each set he wrote the expected comment; sometimes briefly, sometimes at considerable length. He now turned to a bundle of so-called essays, and on opening the first could not repress a groan. No! This was beyond his strength. He would make up the parcels for post, write the half-dozen letters that must be sent to-day, and go out. Had he not sixpence in his pocket?

Just as he had taken this resolve some one knocked at the sitting-room door, and with the inattention of a man who expects nothing, Topham bade enter.

‘A gen’man asking for Mr. Starkey, sir,’ said the servant.

‘All right. Send him in.’

And then entered a man whose years seemed to be something short of fifty, a hale, ruddy-cheeked, stoutish man, whose dress and bearing made it probable that he was no Londoner.