IX For well-nigh eighteen months Wynne Rendall, seeker of eminence, destroyer of symmetry, professor of æsthetic thought, worked with his hands in little byways of the unfriendly city. He had come to look on Paris as the unfriendly city, for very shabbily she served him after his money gave out. They laughed at his frail stature and careful, elegant speech when he sought work in the Covent Garden of the French capital, and it was a desperately gaunt and hungry boy who at last found employment in a small _pâtisserie_ somewhere in the neighbourhood of Boulevard Magenta. Things had gone so ill with him that he was rocking on his heels, staring greedily at the cakes in the pastry-cook’s window like any starving urchin. He did not notice the printed card, “Youth wanted,” which stood among the trays. A stout woman behind the counter saw and beckoned him to enter. “You look hungry,” she said. “I am.” Even short sentences were difficult. “D’you want work?” “I want to eat.” “Eating is for people who work. Would you care for a place here, delivering bread? I need some one.” “I could not be trusted with a loaf,” he said, and fainted. The stout lady was comparatively kind. She threw water over his face, and when he came to, gave him coffee, a piece of sausage, and some bread. She allowed him to finish, and then told him very plainly he might express gratitude by accepting the post of errand boy at a small wage. To Wynne it seemed that any wage was acceptable which could be earned in an atmosphere so rich in odours of cooked corn. He said “Yes” almost before she had framed the offer. Later he repented, for the hours of labour were incessant, the food scarce, and the room in which he slept was dirty, damp, and ill-ventilated. Of his weekly earnings, when he had bought himself cigarettes and paid back a certain proportion for lodging, there remained little or nothing. Books, which had hitherto been the breath of life to him, were of necessity denied. Very occasionally he scraped together a few coppers and bought some dusty, broken-backed volume which he scarcely ever found leisure to read. He was too physically fatigued at night for reading, and during the day was kept continually on the run.