"That last article of yours I used was a very good one, and I shall always be glad to see anything you like to submit; but the amount of space we can give to foreign stuff, however good, is limited, and I do not like to have the same signature more than three or four times a month," Dodgson wrote, in returning Jimmy's next manuscript.

Jimmy passed the letter to Lalage. "Not very encouraging, is it dear?"

The girl read it through. "Oh, I think so. Three or four months means six or eight guineas from one paper alone, and then, you see, there are so many others. I'm sure you'll do well, because you're very, very clever, and because you're good to Lalage."

"Will that bring me luck?" he asked, smiling.

"Of course," she answered. "Everyone who is good to me gets on and those who are horrid come to grief. I've seen it, lots of times." She spoke seriously, with an air of conviction.

"Well, I hope you're right." Jimmy sighed. He had not sold any manuscript for several days, and was feeling distinctly worried about the future. His original capital had dwindled down to a few shillings, despite Lalage's careful management, and, so far, he had not been paid for any of his work. Already, the need of money was crippling him, robbing him of his powers of imagination, and by that hideous perversity of effect which every writer knows to his cost, making him do less instead of the more he longed to produce.

Lalage, ever an optimist, did her best to cheer him up and to assist him, searching the papers for news items which might form the basis of an article, counting the number of words in his manuscripts to see they did not exceed the regulation column length, and even copying out his rough notes in her clear, bold handwriting.

"I wish you could get a typewriter machine, Jimmy," she remarked. "I'm sure your stuff would have a better chance, and I could soon learn to use the thing. Other girls do, so I'm sure I can."

"They cost a lot of money," Jimmy answered, rather wearily.

Lalage tossed her head. "You can get them on the hire-purchase system. I believe you think I should get tired of it, you old silly. Now don't you?"

The man stooped down and kissed her. "I don't think anything of the kind. I know you're a brick, only——." He broke off with a sigh, then, "I'm going down to the club, to see if I can find Kelly. I must do something before we get in a fix."

She looked up at him anxiously. "Will you be long, dear? And do be careful, won't you? You walk through the traffic as if it wasn't there, unless you have me to look after you."

When he had gone out, she sat for a long time, very still, staring into the fire. Already, she was getting a little afraid. Twice, Jimmy had gone down to the club in the vain hope of hearing of something to do or picking up some useful hints, and each time he had returned a little flushed and inclined to be apologetic. Lalage did not blame him, even in her own mind. It was inevitable, she told herself, after all he had been through, to the strain of which was now added the anxiety of the present. She did not blame him, but at the same time, as she glanced round her little home, she gave a shudder of fear at the possibility of losing it all and of losing Jimmy as well. "If I were only sure of him, if I dare trust him, I wouldn't mind, I'd risk it all. But to lose everything, and then be homeless and alone again——" She suddenly felt very cold and stooped down to poke the little fire.

A moment later, the electric bell rang, three times in rapid succession, a signal she knew well. She stood up quickly, her face very pale. "It's Ralph," she muttered. "And we want money so badly. I wonder if he would just lend it." She stood, with clenched hands, trying to decide. The bell rang again, seemingly more insistently; then, deliberately, she sat down, and put her fingers in her ears. "Oh, Jimmy, I won't, because I love you. But I don't believe you trust me, and I don't believe you understand."

Down at the club, Jimmy was seeking advice of Douglas Kelly.

"Hasn't the Record paid you yet?" the latter asked. "Oh, you haven't sent in an account? You should have done so on the Wednesday after your stuff appeared, then you would have got a cheque on the Friday afternoon. Still, if you go down to-day, before five, the cashier will give it to you. He's a very decent fellow, and, if you're ever badly stuck, he'll let you have it the day your article appears. I've been glad enough to get it that way, more than once."

Jimmy felt that sudden relief which only those who have been desperately short of money can know. He had led Lalage to understand that he had a couple of shillings in his pocket for his own needs beyond the half-crown he left her, whereas he had not even got his omnibus fare back from Fleet Street.

"I hate to think of you going out without the money for a drink and so on," she had said. "What's more, I'm not going to let you do it." So he had lied bravely to her, knowing that, unless he had some luck, the half-crown would be needed for food for the morrow. Now, however, he would have money enough for a good many to-morrows.

Kelly knew nothing of Lalage, but he understood what the sudden brightening of Jimmy's face meant.

"Been hard up?" he asked, with a smile. "Why didn't you come to me, as I told you to do? Of course, you'll find it an uphill game, and I would advise you to leave it now, at the start, if I were not sure you would succeed in the end. You'll have a hard fight, because you've got ability and experience of the world, and those will tell against you at first."

"Why?" Jimmy asked.

Kelly gave a cynical little laugh. "Because there's not much demand for either in Fleet Street. You've only got to study the Press to see that—dailies, weeklies, magazines, the whole lot. They want writers who are just on the level of the mob, because then the mob can understand them. All your travel won't help you to get a job; but if you could go into a newspaper office and say, 'I know more about Upper Clapton, or Stockwell, or some such beastly place than any man living,' or 'I'm a crime expert, and I can give the names, and dates of execution, of every man hanged in London for the last twenty years,' then they'd welcome you as a long-lost brother, and give you about ten pounds a week."

Jimmy laughed, not quite believing him. "Then how did you yourself get on?"

Kelly finished his drink, and ordered some more before answering the question, then, "I bluffed," he said. "There was a coal strike coming on, and I swore I was an expert on coal mining, so the Evening Guardian gave me a job. I picked up a little knowledge locally, just a few technical terms and so on; and, as for the rest, neither the editor nor the public knew that half my stuff was utter rot. It read well, and lent itself to good headlines."

"And then, after that?" Jimmy asked.

"After that? Oh, well, I had got my foot in, and it was easy. I advertised myself, and made the ruck get out of my way, as I told you before. I'm not loved, but then I'm not in Fleet Street for the sake of earning the regard of its population."

Jimmy looked surprised. "They all seem pretty eager to talk to you."

"Of course they do." Kelly laughed grimly. "Of course they do, because I'm a power already and I may be an editor by-and-by; but, if I went down, all they would think about would be to scramble for my place. Don't think I'm blaming them; they're a decent enough crowd, awfully decent, but the fight is too hard to have time for thinking about anyone else. Why you, yourself, are already the common foe, in a sense. You're taking up space in the Record which, but for you, someone else would fill. You won't get any help or advice, and most people would say I was a fool for introducing a possible competitor of my own. You'll feel the same, if you stick in Fleet Street long enough, which you won't do."

"I thought you said I was going to succeed," Jimmy retorted.

Kelly yawned. "So I did, my bright child. But when you've learnt the ropes, and can afford it, you'll go in for fiction. But just now, all your ideas are chaotic, and you won't do a decent story until you've sorted them out and fallen in love."

Jimmy coloured. "How do you know I've never done that yet?"

The other man shook his head. "You're too sweetly young in many of your ways and ideas. Oh, I daresay there's some prim maiden belonging to your sister's circle, with an aldermanic papa in the City—but you, yourself, would never really be in love with her. I know you too well; and if you did marry her, you would never write a book, until you had run away from her, as you would certainly do. Well," he got up abruptly, as if to avoid giving any reasons for his ideas, "I'm going over to the Record office now, and if you come, I'll introduce you to the cashier and you can get your cheque."

Jimmy did not waste any time after he left the Record office. The cashier himself changed the cheque for him, the banks being shut. Jimmy hesitated a moment as to whether he should take a hansom, then remembered the lean days of the past, and jumped on an omnibus. Lalage could make a shilling go a surprisingly long way.

He found the girl sitting in the dark, in front of an almost dead fire, and his conscience smote him on account of the time he had spent in the warm, comfortable club smoking-room.

"We're in luck, sweetheart," he said, putting his hands on her shoulders, and kissing her. "I've got the six guineas out of the Record."

She reached up and pulled his face down to hers again, in one of her rare bursts of outward affection. "Oh, I'm so glad. I was reckoning up, and I found you must have gone out without any money, even for tobacco or a drink, and I was picturing you trudging back in this cold drizzle. You are a naughty boy to do those things."

"And how about you, if I spent all the money? Wouldn't you think to yourself that I was a selfish beast?"

Lalage shook her head. "You could never be selfish; it's not your nature. You might be thoughtless, that's all. Promise me you won't go out like that again. I shall worry ever so much if you don't. I know, only too well, what it means to trudge about in the London mud without a penny for even a glass of hot milk. Oh, the cold." She gave a little shiver. "You know that shop in Regent Street, where they have the big fires in the window, showing off some stoves. I've stood there for as long as I dare, more than once, trying to think I was feeling the heat through the glass."

"Don't, please don't," Jimmy muttered thickly. "I do hate to think of it all. And it shan't be so again, I swear it shan't. Let's forget it all to-night, and go out and have some dinner somewhere, for a change. You're all on a shiver now. I'll go out and get some brandy, whilst you put your things on. I may as well bring in a bottle."

Lalage put her hand on his arm. "Not a bottle, dear, only a quartern. That'll be quite enough. Do what Lalage tells you this time."

"Don't I always do what you tell me?" he asked, laughing.

"Oh, I don't want you to say that," she answered quickly. "You ought to be your own master; only when I know a thing is right I do like to tell you. A woman should, I think."

For an instant, Jimmy felt a wild longing to beg her to change the word "woman" to that of "wife," but she had already turned towards the door, and at the same moment the noise of the grimy street seemed to come in through the window and somehow fill the room. The sound recalled him to his normal self. How could he, a Grierson, take a wife from those surroundings?