He saw it himself for a breath or two; but he did not guess the
full beauty of his future.
As the hot weather began, the shackles settled on him and ate into his flesh.
First would come letters--big, crossed, seven sheet letters--from his wife,
telling him how she longed to see him, and what a Heaven upon earth would be
their property when they met.
Then some boy of the chummery wherein Dicky lodged would pound on the door of
his bare little room, and tell him to come out and look at a pony--the very
thing to suit him. Dicky could not afford ponies. He had to explain this. Dicky
could not afford living in the chummery, modest as it was. He had to explain
this before he moved to a single room next the office where he worked all day.
He kept house on a green oil-cloth table-cover, one chair, one charpoy, one
photograph, one tooth-glass, very strong and thick, a seven-rupee eight-anna
filter, and messing by contract at thirty-seven rupees a month. Which last item
was extortion. He had no punkah, for a punkah costs fifteen rupees a month; but
he slept on the roof of the office with all his wife's letters under his
pillow. Now and again he was asked out to dinner where he got both a punkah and
an iced drink. But this was seldom, for people objected to recognizing a boy
who had evidently the instincts of a Scotch tallow-chandler, and who lived in
such a nasty fashion.
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