about almost wholly by common men; not by Oxford-trained aristocrats,
but men who stand shoulder to shoulder in the humble ranks of life and
earn the bread that they eat. Again, I’m glad I came. I have found a
country at last where one may start fair, and breast to breast with his
fellow man, rise by his own efforts, and be something in the world and be
proud of that something; not be something created by an ancestor three
hundred years ago.”
CHAPTER XI.
During the first few days he kept the fact diligently before his mind
that he was in a land where there was “work and bread for all.” In fact,
for convenience’ sake he fitted it to a little tune and hummed it to
himself; but as time wore on the fact itself began to take on a doubtful
look, and next the tune got fatigued and presently ran down and stopped.
His first effort was to get an upper clerkship in one of the departments,
where his Oxford education could come into play and do him service.
But he stood no chance whatever. There, competency was no
recommendation; political backing, without competency, was worth six of
it. He was glaringly English, and that was necessarily against him in
the political centre of a nation where both parties prayed for the Irish
cause on the house-top and blasphemed it in the cellar. By his dress he
was a cowboy; that won him respect–when his back was not turned–but it
couldn’t get a clerkship for him. But he had said, in a rash moment,
that he would wear those clothes till the owner or the owner’s friends
caught sight of them and asked for that money, and his conscience would
not let him retire from that engagement now.
At the end of a week things were beginning to wear rather a startling
look. He had hunted everywhere for work, descending gradually the scale
of quality, until apparently he had sued for all the various kinds df
work a man without a special calling might hope to be able to do, except
ditching and the other coarse manual sorts-and had got neither work nor
the promise of it.
He was mechanically turning over the leaves of his diary, meanwhile, and
now his eye fell upon the first record made after he was burnt out:
“I myself did not doubt my stamina before, nobody could doubt it now, if
they could see how I am housed, and realise that I feel absolutely no
disgust with these quarters, but am as serenely content with them as any
dog would be in a similar kennel. Terms, twenty-five dollars a week.
I said I would start at the bottom. I have kept my word.”
A shudder went quaking through him, and he exclaimed:
“What have I been thinking of! This the bottom! Mooning along a whole
week, and these terrific expenses climbing and climbing all the time!
I must end this folly straightway.”
He settled up at once and went forth to find less sumptuous lodgings. He
had to wander far and seek with diligence, but he succeeded. They made
him pay in advance–four dollars and a half; this secured both bed and
food for a week. The good-natured, hardworked landlady took him up three
flights of narrow, uncarpeted stairs and delivered him into his room.
There were two double-bedsteads in it, and one single one. He would be
allowed to sleep alone in one of the double beds until some new boarder
should come, but he wouldn’t be charged extra.
So he would presently be required to sleep with some stranger!
The thought of it made him sick. Mrs. Marsh, the landlady, was very
friendly and hoped he would like her house-they all liked it, she said.
“And they’re a very nice set of boys. They carry on a good deal, but
that’s their fun. You see, this room opens right into this back one,
and sometimes they’re all in one and sometimes in the other; and hot
nights they all sleep on the roof when it don’t rain. They get out there
the minute it’s hot enough. The season’s so early that they’ve already