But this is anticipating, and may perhaps also convey a wrong
impression, for from the outset he did occasionally turn his attention
to work which must be more properly cared literary than either
scientific or metaphysical.
CHAPTER LXXIV
ABOUT six months after he had set up his shop his prosperity had
reached its climax. It seemed even then as though he were likely to go
ahead no less fast than heretofore, and I doubt not that he would have
done so, if success or non-success had depended upon himself alone.
Unfortunately he was not the only person to be reckoned with.
One morning he had gone out to attend some sales, leaving his wife
perfectly well, as usual in good spirits, and looking very pretty.
When he came back he found her sitting on a chair in the back parlour,
with her hair over her face, sobbing and crying as though her heart
would break. She said she had been frightened in the morning by a
man who had pretended to be a customer, and had threatened her
unless she gave him some things, and she had had to give them to him
in order to save herself from violence; she had been in hysterics ever
since the man had gone. This was her story, but her speech was so
incoherent that it was not easy to make out what she said.
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