Chapter 24 - Page 2

lodging and
attendance (as per
account rendered) 1 15 0
By missing 0 0 4
By balance 50 3 2
------------- -------------
£60 3 11-1/2 £60 3 11-1/2
------------- -------------

From this it will be manifest to the most unbusiness like that,
disregarding the extraordinary expenditure on the marriage, and the by
no means final "few little things" Ethel had bought, outgoings
exceeded income by two pounds and more, and a brief excursion into
arithmetic will demonstrate that in five-and-twenty weeks the balance
of the account would be nothing.

But that guinea a week was not to go on for five-and-twenty weeks, but
simply for fifteen, and then the net outgoings will be well over three
guineas, reducing the "law" accorded our young couple to
two-and-twenty weeks. These details are tiresome and disagreeable, no
doubt, to the refined reader, but just imagine how much more
disagreeable they were to Mr. Lewisham, trudging meditative to the
schools. You will understand his slipping out of the laboratory, and
betaking himself to the Educational Reading-room, and how it was that
the observant Smithers, grinding his lecture notes against the now
imminent second examination for the "Forbes," was presently perplexed
to the centre of his being by the spectacle of Lewisham intent upon a
pile of current periodicals, the _Educational Times_, the _Journal of
Education_, the _Schoolmaster, Science and Art, The University
Correspondent, Nature, The Athenaeum, The Academy_, and _The Author_.

Smithers remarked the appearance of a note-book, the jotting down of
memoranda. He edged into the bay nearest Lewisham's table and
approached him suddenly from the flank. "What are _you_ after?" said
Smithers in a noisy whisper and with a detective eye on the papers. He
perceived Lewisham was scrutinising the advertisement column, and his
perplexity increased.

"Oh--nothing," said Lewisham blandly, with his hand falling casually
over his memoranda; "what's your particular little game?"

"Nothing much," said Smithers, "just mooching round. You weren't at
the meeting last Friday?"

He turned a chair, knelt on it, and began whispering over the back
about Debating Society politics. Lewisham was inattentive and
brief. What had he to do with these puerilities? At last Smithers went
away foiled, and met Parkson by the entrance. Parkson, by-the-bye, had
not spoken to Lewisham since their painful misunderstanding. He made a
wide detour to his seat at the end table, and so, and by a singular
rectitude of bearing and a dignified expression, showed himself aware
of Lewisham's offensive presence.

Lewisham's