Now I am quite well aware that in chronicling the above I am laying myself open to the charge of being jejune, trivial, etc., and I know too, that to many men of my own class such details as I have given above will be so familiar that they will wonder why ever I should have written about them. But somehow I have felt that, as in the subjects of my other books, a little plain and simple truth amidst the flood of invention by writers who have merely looked on, might not be out of place, might indeed be of use. For I hold that it is impossible, even for those who are most interested but do not live the life, however keen they may be, to portray faithfully all the day and night doings of the people they write about. They may and do try hard and honestly to fulfil their self-imposed task, but as long as they can retire to their comfortably furnished homes and nicely served meals whenever they like, they will never be able to describe truly, however much they wish to do so. For a little while the novelty of setting my house in order and the delight of having a garden for the first time in my life prevented me from dwelling upon the obvious disadvantages of the change of abode I had made. But when I came to realise that in order to live at a low rent and have a little house to myself I had to put in nearly four hours a day travelling, I began to wonder whether I had not been foolish after all. This was long before the days of the extension of the District Railway to East Ham, and I could only keep my travelling expenses within possible limits by taking a workman's ticket, not available after 7 A.M., to Fenchurch Street, and walking thence to Victoria. This long journey, during which I was perforce idle, played havoc with my business of picture-framing, yet still I managed to keep my hand in, and indeed improved a little in that I had a small workshop to myself now, and no longer made frames on the kitchen table. And I should be ungrateful indeed if I did not remember most affectionately the delights of Wanstead Park and Epping Forest. Many and many a pilgrimage I made in the summer with the children packed in a big perambulator and a bag containing all the materials for a homely picnic slung on the handles to those sylvan glades, and here, at no other expense save the muscular effort, enjoyed a delightful holiday, the best perhaps I have ever known, because purely unconventional and costless. I had the satisfaction of feeling too that, in spite of the rapidity with which streets of small houses like the one I was living in were springing up all around me, the grand forest would never be built on any more, would always be available for such poor workers as myself.