I began to take a spurious interest in the remaining five millions,
and wrote several clever letters in a vein of cheap satire,
indirectly suggesting the pathos of my position, but indicating that
I was broad-minded enough to find intellectual entertainment in the
scenes, persons, and habits of London in the dead season. I even did
rational things at the instigation of others. For, though I should
have liked total isolation best, I, of course, found that there was a
sediment of unfortunates like myself, who, unlike me, viewed the
situation in a most prosaic light. There were river excursions, and
so on, after office-hours; but I dislike the river at any time for
its noisy vulgarity, and most of all at this season. So I dropped out
of the fresh air brigade and declined H--'s offer to share a
riverside cottage and run up to town in the mornings. I did spend one
or two week-ends with the Catesbys in Kent; but I was not
inconsolable when they let their house and went abroad, for I found
that such partial compensations did not suit me. Neither did the
taste for satirical observation last. A passing thirst, which I dare
say many have shared, for adventures of the fascinating kind
described in the New Arabian Nights led me on a few evenings into
some shady haunts in Soho and farther eastward; but was finally
quenched one sultry Saturday night after an hour's immersion in the
reeking atmosphere of a low music-hall in Ratcliffe Highway, where I
sat next a portly female who suffered from the heat, and at frequent
intervals refreshed herself and an infant from a bottle of tepid
stout.

By the first week in September I had abandoned all palliatives, and
had settled into the dismal but dignified routine of office, club,
and chambers. And now came the most cruel trial, for the hideous