'How much?' said Dick, as one who habitually dealt in millions.

'Between thirty and forty pounds. If it would be any convenience to you,
of course we could let you have it at once; but we usually settle accounts
monthly.'

'If I show that I want anything now, I'm lost,' he said to himself. 'All I
need I'll take later on.' Then, aloud, 'It's hardly worth while; and I'm
going to the country for a month, too. Wait till I come back, and I'll see
about it.'

'But we trust, Mr. Heldar, that you do not intend to sever your
connection with us?'

Dick's business in life was the study of faces, and he watched the speaker
keenly. 'That man means something,' he said. 'I'll do no business till I've
seen Torpenhow. There's a big deal coming.' So he departed, making no
promises, to his one little room by the Docks. And that day was the
seventh of the month, and that month, he reckoned with awful
distinctness, had thirty-one days in it!?

It is not easy for a man of catholic tastes and healthy appetites to exist for
twenty-four days on fifty shillings. Nor is it cheering to begin the
experiment alone in all the loneliness of London. Dick paid seven shillings
a week for his lodging, which left him rather less than a shilling a day for
food and drink. Naturally, his first purchase was of the materials of his
craft; he had been without them too long. Half a day's investigations and
comparison brought him to the conclusion that sausages and mashed
potatoes, twopence a plate, were the best food. Now, sausages once or
twice a week for breakfast are not unpleasant. As lunch, even, with