Читать книгу Wrecked in Port. A Novel онлайн

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Silently, and with an aching heart. The old clerk had said but little, but Walter felt that his dictum was correct, and that all hopes of getting a situation as a tutor were at an end. Oh, if his father had only left him money enough to go to college, he would have had a future before him which---- But then, Marian? He would never have known that pure, faithful, earnest love, failing which, life in its brightest and best form would have been dull and distasteful to him. He had that love still, thank Heaven, and in that thought there were the elements of hope, and the promptings to bestir himself yet once more in his hard, self-appointed task of bread-winning.

Money running very short, and time running rapidly on. Not the shortest step in advance since he had first set foot in London, and the bottom of his purse growing painfully visible. He had taken to frequenting a small coffee-house in the neighbourhood of Covent Garden, where, as he munched the roll and drank the tea which now too often served him as a dinner, he could read the newspapers, and scan the advertisements to see if there were anything likely to suit him among the myriad columns. It was a quiet and secluded little place, where but few strangers entered; he saw the same faces night after night, as he noticed--and where he could have his letters addressed to him under his initials, which was a great comfort, as he had noticed lately that his landlady in his riverside lodging-house had demurred to the receipt of so much initialed correspondence, ascribing it, as Walter afterwards learned from the "slavey," or maid-of-all-work, either to "castin' 'orryscopes, tellin' charickters by 'andwritin', or rejen'rative bolsum for the 'air!"--things utterly at variance with the respectability of her establishment.