That was how they sketched it under the
Addison Road Station lamps; and, after one short month, came Gravesend and
Dicky steaming out to his new life, and the girl crying in a thirty-shillings a
week bed-and-living room, in a back street off Montpelier Square near the
Knightsbridge Barracks.
But the country that Dicky came to was a hard land, where "men" of twenty-one
were reckoned very small boys indeed, and life was expensive. The salary that
loomed so large six thousand miles away did not go far. Particularly when Dicky
divided it by two, and remitted more than the fair half, at 1-6, to Montpelier
Square. One hundred and thirty-five rupees out of three hundred and thirty is
not much to live on; but it was absurd to suppose that Mrs. Hatt could exist
forever on the 20 pounds held back by Dicky, from his outfit allowance. Dicky
saw this, and remitted at once; always remembering that Rs. 700 were to be
paid, twelve months later, for a first-class passage out for a lady. When you
add to these trifling details the natural instincts of a boy beginning a new
life in a new country and longing to go about and enjoy himself, and the
necessity for grappling with strange work--which, properly speaking, should
take up a boy's undivided attention--you will see that Dicky started
handicapped.
Pages:
718
719
720
721
722
723
724
725
726
727
728
729
730
731
732
733
734
735
736
737
738
739
740
741
742