Here was luxurious ease compared to toilful effort. Here was a privilege greater than all the consciousness of having overcome an unaccustomed dialect. To think as freely as one who thinks in dreams, and utter one's thoughts as unsuspiciously as the rudest peasant who has never contemplated the possibility of error in his speech, was a new luxury, an unexpected, a seemingly undeserved boon, presented every morning at waking, and not withdrawn when the curtains of the night were closed. It was pleasant to get back once more to the familiar living, the familiar cooking, even the familiar dulness of the atmosphere. The evenings were already getting short, and more than one fog had visited London that season. But although Eugene and Lavirotte found themselves once more in London, fully equipped for the ocean in which each meant to launch himself, to neither did it seem there was any immediate chance of employment; and, in fact, all arrangements had been made for the remainder of that season. Each found it necessary to practise the strictest economy. Lavirotte had still something left, and only that Eugene's father was able to spare, out of the little which remained to him from the wreck of his fortune, something for his son, Eugene, his wife and child might have known what absolute hunger was. Eugene had two rooms, and Lavirotte one. They did not live in the same house, but they met daily, Lavirotte coming to Eugene's place, and spending an hour or so in the evening with his friend. "I shall not be able to hold out," said Lavirotte on one occasion, "more than a couple or three months, if something doesn't turn up." "I should not have been able to hold out so long," said Eugene, "only that my father was able to lend me a hand." "It's weary work, waiting," said Lavirotte. "But still, I do not despair." "Not only do I not despair," said Eugene, "but I mean to succeed. Neither of us is a fool, and there are worse men, at our business, making a living in London. Why should we starve?" These were gallant words, but facts were hard upon the two. Lavirotte was the first to meet with a piece of luck. It was not much. In some remote kind of way, through Cassidy's agency, he was asked to sing at a concert in Islington, and got a guinea for the night. When the expenses of gloves and a cab were taken out of this guinea, very little remained as remuneration to the singer. But still it was better to do something than nothing, and Lavirotte was a few shillings less poor by the transaction. Although he had not even yet abandoned hope of getting a hundred pounds a night, he no longer thought it likely he would reach such an El Dorado soon. He would have been very glad to take ten pounds a night; ay, to take ten pounds a week. He would have been glad to take a pound a night. Eugene had told him that he, Eugene, would be glad to sing for nothing if he could only get an "appearance."