But I knew
enough of Cullingworth's resource to feel that he could
easily have got over such a difficulty as that. In fact,
in this last letter he HAD got over it by his tale
about the grate and the maid. He must have had some
stronger reason for restraint. As I thought over the
course of our relations I was convinced that his scheme
was to lure me on by promises until I had committed
myself, and then to abandon me, so that I should myself
have no resource but to compound with my creditors-
to be, in fact, that which my mother had called him.
But in that case he must have been planning it out
almost from the beginning of my stay with him, for my
mother's letters stigmatising his conduct had begun very
early. For some time he had been uncertain how to
proceed. Then he had invented the excuse (which seemed
to me at the time, if you remember, to be quite
inadequate) about the slight weekly decline in the
practice in order to get me out of it. His next move was
to persuade me to start for myself; and as this would be
impossible without money, he had encouraged me to it by
the promise of a small weekly loan. I remembered how he
had told me not to be afraid about ordering furniture and
other things, because tradesmen gave long credit to
beginners, and I could always fall back upon him if
necessary. He knew too from his own experience that the
landlord would require at least a year's tenancy.
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