Explore "25" by Beverley Nichols on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
In 1870, had you chanced to be walking over one of the rough and alarming roads that stretched across the Balkans, from Roustchouk to Constantinople, you might have met a young man driving a bullock cart. He would have been tall and dark, with a certain weariness round his black eyes, and what might be described as ‘a grim determination' round his lips. (Yes -- we will get to Michael Arlen in a moment.)
The young man was setting out to make his fortune. And he made it. Not all at once, it is true, for the road from Roustchouk to Constantinople is long, and I should imagine, in 1870 it was even longer. And one cannot make a great fortune quickly when one has only £20 with which to buy Turkish delights, even when one sells them at double the money. Bandits, too, who emerged from the forlorn countryside and attacked one in the rear, were apt to make great inroads into one's fortune. However, in time, the young man had saved £50, at the age of 19. (Yes, Michael Arlen is getting nearer and nearer.)