The same routine of work hour after hour, day after day, week after week, grew tame and wearisome.

And I began to find out that even the lordly income of eight shillings a week didn't make the happy possessor, who had to clothe and feed himself, actually a rich man; while as for Mrs Nash's, the place before long became detestable.

The fact is, that I, with no cheerier home than Brownstroke to look back on, became desperately homesick before three months in London were over; and but for my friend Smith, I might have deserted entirely.
However, Smith, solemn as he was, wouldn't let me get quite desperate.
He was one of those even-tempered sort of fellows who never gush either with joy or sorrow, but take things as they come, and because they never let themselves get elated, rarely let themselves get down.
"Fred," he said to me one day, when I was in the dumps, "what's wrong ?" "Oh, I don't know," said I, "I'm getting rather sick of London, I think." "Not much use getting sick of it yet," said he.

"Time enough in fifty years." "Jack," said I, "if I thought I had all my life to live here, I should run away." "You're a duffer, old man.

Aren't you getting on at Hawk Street, then ?" "Oh yes, well enough, but it's most fearfully slow.