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This was the inscrutable perfect answer. "Cripes!" said the puzzled tramp, as he caressed the nuzzling head. "The purp's loco. Maybe he's been lost. You might think he'd never seen a man before." He was right. And Gissing sat quietly, his throat resting upon the soiled knee of a very old and spicy trouser. "I have found God," he said. Presently he thought of the ship.
Why, he thought with a sudden shock, if only 36,500 people in this city have had a thoroughly spendthrift and useless day, that means a net loss of a century! If the War, he said to himself, lasted over 1,500 days and involved more than 10,000,000 men, how many aeons He used to think about these things during quiet evenings in the top-floor room at Mrs. Purp's.
Purp's rules, he smuggled in an egg, a box of biscuits, a small packet of tea and sugar, and a tin of condensed milk. He emptied the milk into his shaving mug, and used the tin to boil water in, holding it over the gas jet. He was getting on finely when a sudden knock on the door made him jump. He spilled the hot water on his leg, and uttered a wild yell. Mrs.
Purp's time, Gissing suspected, was irretrievably wasted a good deal of it, to judge by his dusty appearance, in rolling around in ashcans or in the company of the neighbourhood bootlegger; but then, he reflected, in a charitable seizure, you must not judge other people's time-spendings by a calculus of your own. Perhaps he himself was growing a little miserly in this matter.
If there is tragedy in our story, alas here it is. Gissing, incorrigible seceder from responsibilities that did not touch his soul, did not dare tell his benefactor the horrid truth. But the worm was in his heart. Late one night, in his room at Mrs. Purp's, he wrote a letter to Mr. Poodle. After mailing it at a street-box, he had a sudden pang. To the dreamer, decisions are fearful.
In spite of this nonchalance, the situation was serious. His money was at a low ebb. All his regular income was diverted to the support of the large household in the country. He was too proud to appeal to his wealthy uncle. He hated also to think of Mrs. Purp's mortification if she learned that her star boarder was out of work. By a curious irony, when he got home he found a letter from Mrs.
The next day an advertisement appeared in the leading papers, to this effect: BEAGLE AND COMPANY take pleasure in announcing to their patrons and friends that MR. GISSING has been admitted to the firm in the status of General Manager Je Maintiendrai Mrs. Purp's excitement at this is easier imagined than described. Her only fear was that now she would lose her best lodger.
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