He was dreadfully hard up, but that is nothing. We resent a prosperous fellow. I don’t fancy he ever had any regular meals. Men stood him drinks, and he had a trick of turning up at your rooms about midnight, talking brilliantly and wildly for about half an hour, and then saying carelessly, “Have you got any bread and butter knocking about, old man?” Fellows who didn’t know him very well would suggest a square meal--a chop, or a sausage and mashed at Mimm’s, just outside the gates--then Jimmy would be affronted. He was always being dunned and pretended that he liked it. Perhaps he really did. He was full of schemes for evading duns. He was an authority on judgment-summonses, pawnshops, shooting the moon, and obtaining credit. He would hold forth eloquently on the delights of being dunned. I forget the particular points he made, but they were very forcible--coming from him. He used to borrow unblushingly, but his gift in that way was restricted--very few of us had any money to lend. He had the finest private collection of pawn-tickets that I ever saw. His pockets were full of them. I remembered that he once went to a swell party--some musical affair. He was very polite, very strict on questions of etiquette. The day after the party he made the usual formal call at the house--it was some big place near Sloane Street. His hat was very sleek, he had a frock coat, a flower in his button-hole--everything complete. He handed his card to the footman, and as he did so a couple of pawn-tickets fluttered gently to the door-mat. The flunkey stooped, picked them up, and handed them gracefully back to Jimmy--who took them with equal grace. He told me the whole performance was superb--in perfect style. It was done without a word, without a smile. They did not dare look at each other. Jimmy’s rooms were untidy and his style of housekeeping not to be commended. He never kept a laundress for very long--because he never paid her. Yet the women loved him and worked for nothing so long as they could. He used to chaff them lightly, explain the state of his exchequer. He took a personal interest in their family life. They told him their troubles; drunken husbands, big families, pugnacious lodgers on the next landing, the hard heart of the landlords when they came upstairs with their black books for the weekly rent. When Mrs. Morey was ill Jimmy went down Green Street to see her, with a couple of French novels--translations--under his arm. She had a gathering on her ankle which she showed him with pride, in spite of his courteous protest, but she declined the offer of the novels. “You’re very kind, sir,” she said. “But I don’t suppose as your books ’ud suit me. I was brought up very particular. I like something good--the Bible or the Common Prayer or the Sunday newspaper. I makes my ’usband read ‘When the wicked man turneth,’ in the ’opes it ’ll be a lesson to ’im. No, there’s nothin’ as the doctor’s ordered, thank you, sir--except to keep my strength up.”