I sat in my house all day, with that ever-present
sense of privacy and novelty which had thrilled me when
I first shut the street door behind me. At evening I
sallied out and bought a loaf of bread, half a pound of
tea ("sweepings," they call it, and it cost eightpence),
a tin kettle (fivepence), a pound of sugar, a tin of
Swiss milk, and a tin of American potted meat. I had
often heard my mother groan over the expenses of
housekeeping, and now I began to understand what she
meant. Two and ninepence went like a flash, but at least
I had enough to keep myself going for some days.
There was a convenient gas bracket in the back room.
I hammered a splinter of wood into the wall above it, and
so made an arm upon which I could hang my little kettle
and boil it over the flame. The attraction of the idea
was that there was no immediate expense, and many things
would have happened before I was called upon to pay the
gas bill. The back room was converted then into both
kitchen and dining room. The sole furniture consisted of
my box, which served both as cupboard, as table, and as
chair. My eatables were all kept inside, and when I
wished for a meal I had only to pick them out and lay
them on the lid, leaving room for myself to sit beside
them.
It was only when I went to my bedroom that I realised
the oversights which I had made in my furnishing. There
was no mattress and no pillow or bed-clothes.
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