CHAPTER LXXXV
ERNEST, being about two-and-thirty years old and having had his
fling for the last three or four years, now settled down in London,
and began to write steadily. Up to this time he had given abundant
promise, but had produced nothing, nor indeed did he come before the
public for another three or four years yet.
He lived as I have said very quietly, secing hardly anyone but
myself, and the three or four old friends with whom I had been
intimate for years. Ernest and we formed our little set, and outside
of this my godson was hardly known at all.
His main expense was travelling, which he indulged in at frequent
intervals, but for short times only. Do what he would he could not get
through more than about fifteen hundred a year; the rest of his income
he gave away if he happened to find a case where he thought money
would be well bestowed, or put by until some opportunity arose of
getting rid of it with advantage.
I knew he was writing, but we had had so many little differences
of opinion upon this head that by a tacit understanding the subject
was seldom referred to between us, and I did not know that he was
actually publishing till one day he brought me a book and told me that
it was his own.
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