Wilhelmina in London by Barry Pain — Read

For a time things went very badly. My luck was right out. A point was reached when I doubted if I could continue to afford four shillings a week for the quite invaluable services of Minnie Saxe. I was determined that this should be almost the last of my economies. I was quite willing to economise on food and firing and -- yes, even on dress. But I did not want to make my own bed any more. I had to get the more sordid part of the work of living done for me. Naturally I was not anxious that Minnie Saxe should discover the badness of my luck and the lowness of my exchequer. She accepted without comment my statement that I found tea and bread-and-butter the best breakfast if one were going to work in the morning. She said nothing when I found it was more hygienic to work in a cold room. When she came in unexpectedly one night and caught me in the very act of dining on tea and bread-and-butter she became extremely bad-tempered and was rather rude. Next morning she informed me that her cousin at Yarmouth had sent them a present of a box of kippers, and her father had taken the liberty of asking if I would accept six with his best thanks for all my kindness to her. I went into my own room to cry, and then came back and had a kipper for breakfast. They were remarkably good kippers, fat and well-liking.

An exclusive diet of tea and bread-and-butter would perhaps be good for many people, but it does not act as a stimulus to the imagination. The editors at this time sent my work back with commendable promptitude; but I did get one little story placed in _Tomlinson's Magazine_, which I had considered to be altogether too high for me and had only attempted in desperation. I had a mutton-chop for dinner the night I received my cheque, and this gross feeding, acting on an already enfeebled constitution, as they say in the obituaries, led me to believe that I could write just the kind of serial that _Tomlinson's Magazine_ would like. I planned it all out that night. Next morning I took a 'bus to the City to see the editor of _Tomlinson's Magazine_ and tell him all about my idea.