Edwin was to place him in the office of an estate agent. His
health was indifferent, and it seemed likely that open-air
exercise, of which he would have a good deal under the particular
circumstances of the case, might counteract the effects of study
too closely pursued.

At his father's death he came into possession (practically it was
put at his disposal at once, though he was little more than
nineteen) of about two hundred pounds--a life-insurance for five
hundred had been sacrificed to exigencies not very long before.
He had no difficulty in deciding how to use this money. His
mother's desire to live in London had in him the force of an
inherited motive; as soon as possible he released himself from
his uncongenial occupations, converted into money all the
possessions of which he had not immediate need, and betook
himself to the metropolis.

To become a literary man, of course.

His capital lasted him nearly four years, for, notwithstanding
his age, he lived with painful economy. The strangest life, of
almost absolute loneliness. From a certain point of Tottenham
Court Road there is visible a certain garret window in a certain
street which runs parallel with that thoroughfare; for the
greater part of these four years the garret in question was
Reardon's home. He paid only three-and-sixpence a week for the
privilege of living there; his food cost him about a shilling a
day; on clothing and other unavoidable expenses he laid out some
five pounds yearly. Then he bought books--volumes which cost
anything between twopence and two shillings; further than that he