When he was going to play cards for money, he would find a
beggar and give him something, even if he had to walk a great distance to
do it. He often used to visit an Italian who kept fortune-telling canaries,
and he always followed the advice he got. It put him out desperately if he
saw the new moon through glass, or over his left shoulder. There was no end
to his superstitions, and, whether by reason of them or in spite of them,
he certainly prospered. When he died, ten or twelve years ago, he left
fifteen thousand pounds.
'I have to thank him for my own good luck. "Look here," he said to me,
"it's only duffers that go on quill-driving at a quid a week. A fellow like
you ought to be doing better." "Show me the way," I said. And I was ready
to do whatever he told me. I had a furious hunger for money; the adventure
in Coventry Street had thoroughly unsettled me, and I would have turned
burglar rather than go on much longer as a wretched slave, looked down upon
by everybody, and exposed to insult at every corner. I dreamed of
money-making, and woke up feverish with determination. At last Crowther
gave me a few jobs to do for him in my off-time. They weren't very nice
jobs, and I shouldn't like to explain them to you; but they brought me in
half a sovereign now and then.
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