Once she was bold enough to climb the stairs of the house, on the pretext of seeing him, and to wait outside the door of his rooms in the darkness of the staircase; she put her face against the door, and listened, almost thinking that she would go in for a moment, just to touch his friendly hand--just to look into his eyes. But there came from the room a shout of laughter, and the sounds of men's voices; she hurried away again, and went home. Meanwhile, the affairs of Charlie Purdue prospered not at all. He had scandalised the little house in Locker Street by getting deeply into debt with the landlady, and his constant assurances that he would be able to pay very soon were beginning to be regarded with suspicion. Always with that idea in his mind that presently something wonderful was to happen--something which should mean to him unlimited money, earned at the least possible expenditure of time or energy--he had racked his brains to discover any and every person from whom he could borrow, and had pretty nearly exhausted the list. The weeks had grown into months, and Charlie had lost something of his gaiety and his brightness; quite unused to trouble or responsibility, he fretted under the weight of both, and became morose and taciturn and embittered. He got to that easiest of all stages in such a career, wherein a man tells himself that to fight any longer is absurd, and that the world must have its way, and must do what it will with him. That further stage, wherein Charlie told himself (and others who would listen) that he had a father, if you please, with no one in the world dependent upon him; a father with a fat living and a private income to boot; yet here was poor Charlie Purdue (if you would but look at him for a moment) without a sixpence to call his own, and with no prospects in the world. Charlie conveniently forgot to mention how long-suffering the father in the fat living had been; that was a mere matter of detail that did not concern the question. The fact that Charlie, at the end of every such expression of opinion, declared with much heartiness that all he wanted in this world was plenty of work, if only someone would give it to him, commended him to such as did not know him, and caused him to be referred to sighingly and pityingly as "Poor Charlie Purdue."