If some malignant
fairy had meant to curse him in this respect, she had overdone her
malice. He did not know he was doing anything strange. He only knew
that he had no money, and must provide for himself, a wife, and a
possible family. More than this, he wanted to have some leisure in an
evening, so that he might read and write and keep up his music. If
anyone would show him how he could do better than he was doing, he should
be much obliged to them, but to himself it seemed that he was doing
sufficiently well; for at the end of the first week the pair found they
had made a clear profit of 3 pounds. In a few weeks this had increased
to 4 pounds, and by the New Year they had made a profit of 5 pounds in
one week.
Ernest had by this time been married some two months, for he had stuck to
his original plan of marrying Ellen on the first day he could legally do
so. This date was a little delayed by the change of abode from Laystall
Street to Blackfriars, but on the first day that it could be done it was
done. He had never had more than 250 pounds a year, even in the times of
his affluence, so that a profit of 5 pounds a week, if it could be
maintained steadily, would place him where he had been as far as income
went, and, though he should have to feed two mouths instead of one, yet
his expenses in other ways were so much curtailed by his changed social
position, that, take it all round, his income was practically what it had
been a twelvemonth before.
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