Edgar’s calculations, which he began next morning, and carried on for a great many days after, were of a kind which many men have made before him, that it would be foolish to call them original. He made elaborate calculations upon various pieces of paper, by which he made out that with economy, he could perfectly well live upon his twenty pounds for two months. To be sure his rent in these rooms in Piccadilly was preposterously high, and could not by any means be brought within that calculation. But then he reflected to himself that moving is always expensive--(he possessed two portmanteaus, a box of books, and a dressing-case, all of which could have gone in a cab)--and that very probably he might fall among thieves, and get into the hands of one of those proverbial landladies who steal the tea, and drink the brandy, in which case it would be no economy at all to save a few shillings on rent. In short, Edgar said to himself, loftily, these petty little savings never tell. You are much less comfortable, and it is just as expensive. For the same reason, he felt it was much the best way to continue dining at the club. “It may be sixpence dearer, but it is so infinitely more comfortable,” he said to himself; and, after all, comfort was worth an additional sixpence. By striking off the rent of his rooms altogether from the calculation, it seemed to him that he could afford his dinners at the club; and if he got his appointment by Christmas, as he certainly must, it would be so easy to pay the lodgings in a lump. He jotted down these calculations so often, and upon so many bits of paper, that he grew to believe in them as if they had been a revelation. By this it will appear that his doubts about hanging on, and waiting for the possible Queen’s Messengership which he had at first set down as out of the question, did not continue to appear so impracticable as time went on. He said to himself every morning that it was absurd, but still he did nothing else, and gradually the Queen’s Messengership grew to be a certain thing to him, upon which he was to enter at Christmas, or a little later. After all, what did it matter how he spent a week or two of his time? At eight-and-twenty, life does not appear so short as some people have found it. A week or two, a month or two, were neither here nor there.