Why, there; it's no good; I don't know
what to say to you. Now what do you think of this, Mary?"
Lydia still held up the coat, and at length persuaded the old man to
don it. The effect upon his appearance was remarkable; conscious of
it, he held himself more upright and stumped to the little square of
looking-glass to try and regard himself. Here he furtively brushed a
hand over his eyes.
"I'm ready, Mary, my dear; I'm ready! It's no good saying anything to
girls like these. Good-bye, Lyddy; good-bye, Thyrza. May you have a
happy Christmas, children! This isn't the first as you've made a happy
one for me."'--(p. 117.)
The anonymously published _Demos_ (1886) can hardly be described as a
typical product of George Gissing's mind and art. In it he subdued himself
rather to the level of such popular producers as Besant and Rice, and went
out of his way to procure melodramatic suspense, an ingredient far from
congenial to his normal artistic temper. But the end justified the means.
The novel found favour in the eyes of the author of _The Lost Sir
Massingberd_, and Gissing for the first time in his life found himself the
possessor of a full purse, with fifty 'jingling, tingling, golden, minted
quid' in it.
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