He played Handel for an hour or so, and then set himself to the
table to read and write. He took all his sermons and all the
theological works he had begun to compose during the time he had
been a clergyman and put them in the fire; as he saw them consume he
felt as though he had got rid of another incubus. Then he took up some
of the little pieces he had begun to write during the latter part of
his undergraduate life at Cambridge, and began to cut them about and
rewrite them. As he worked quietly at these till he heard the clock
strike ten and it was time to go to bed, he felt that he was now not
only happy but supremely happy.
Next day Ellen took him to Debenham's auction rooms, and they
surveyed the lots of clothes which were hung up all round the
auction room to be viewed. Ellen had had sufficient experience to know
about how much each lot ought to fetch; she overhauled lot after
lot, and valued it; in a very short time Ernest himself began to
have a pretty fair idea what each lot should go for, and before the
morning was over valued a dozen lots running at prices about which
Ellen said he would not hurt if he could get them for that.
So far from disliking this work or finding it tedious, he liked it
very much, indeed he would have liked anything which did not overtax
his physical strength, and which held out a prospect of bringing him
in money.
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