He slept in a public-house, and next day resumed
his idle search for employment. The weather was mild
and beautiful, his wants were simple, a cup of coffee

38



VAIN FORTUNE

and a roll, a couple of sausages, and the day passed in
a sort of morose and passionless contemplation. He
thought of everything and nothing, least of all of how
he should find money for the morrow. When the day
came, and the penny to buy a cup of coffee was want-
ing, he quite naturally, without giving it a second
thought, engaged himself as a labourer, and worked all
day carrying sacks of grain out of a vessel's hold. For
a large part of his nature was patient and simple,
docile as an animaFs. There was in him so much
that was rudimentary, that in accepting this burden
of physical toil he was acting not in contradiction
to, but in full and perfect harmony with, his true
nature.
But at the end of a week his health began to give
way, and, like a man after a violent debauch, he
thought of returning to a more normal existence. He
had left the manuscript of his unfortunate play in the
North. Had they destroyed it ? The involuntary fear
of the writer for his child made him smile. What did
it matter? Clearly the first thing to do would be to
write to the editor of The Cosmopolitan^ and ask if he
could find him some employment, something certain ;
writing occasional articles for newspapers, that he
couldn't do.
