CHAPTEK I

* DISINHERITED W

ANTED, an active and intelligent young man for

general work in a commercial house having a branch at Alexandria. It is desirable that he should be able to write a good hand, and if neces-

sary to assist in office work. Wages £2 per week. Personal

application to be made at Messrs. Partridge & Co., 453 Leadenhall Street.”

This advertisement was read by a man of five or six and

twenty, in a small room in the upper story of a house in Lupus Street, Pimlico. He was not the only inmate of the room, for a young woman, apparently not more than eighteen, was sitting there sewing, her work interrupted occasionally

! by a short, hacking cough. Her husband, for this was the

I relation in which he stood to her, put down the paper care-

i lessly and then got up.

I “ I am going out, dear, on my usual search. You know we

I have agreed that it is of no use my trying to live by my pen.

! I get an article accepted occasionally, but it^s not enough to

provide more than bread and cheese. I must look for some-

I thing else.”

I But you must succeed presently, Gregory.”

I “Yes, dear; but while the grass grows the horse starves. At any rate I will try for something else. If I get anything,

it wonT prevent my writing; and when my genius is recog-

nized I can drop the other thing and take to literature reg-

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