People I met in Mr. Rawlence's studio occasionally mentioned these sketches, and I took great pleasure in them. Incidentally, they added to my hoard at the bank. Mr. Smith, my room-mate at North Shore, had hitherto regarded my newspaper work strictly from a business standpoint; judging it solely by the salary it brought. Suddenly now I found I had touched an unsuspected vein of his character. He was surprisingly pleased about these signed _Observer_ sketches. This was authorship, he said; and he spoke to every one, with most kindly pride, of his young friend's work. My account at the savings bank touched the desired two hundred pounds mark, when I had been just three years and nine months in Sydney. I decided to add to it until I had completed my fourth year; and, meantime, made inquiries about the passage to England. From this point on I made no secret of my intentions, and a very kindly reply came from Mrs. Perkins in Dursley to the letter in which I told her of my plan. At a venture I addressed a letter to Ted, my old friend of _Livorno_ days; but it brought no answer. Neither had the letter of nearly four years earlier, in which his loan of one pound had been returned with warm thanks. The months slipped by, and the fourth anniversary of my start in Sydney arrived; and still I postponed from day to day the final step of resigning my appointment, and booking my passage. I cannot explain this at all, for I had become more and more eager for the adventure with every passing month. I do not think timidity restrained me. No, I fancy a kind of epicurean pleasure in the hourly consciousness that I was able now to take the step so soon as I chose induced me to prolong the savouring of it; just as I have sometimes found myself deliberately refraining for hours, and even for a day or so, from opening a parcel of books which I have desired and looked forward to enjoying for some time previously. The awakening from this sort of epicurean dalliance was, as the event proved, somewhat sharp and abrupt. I did presently resign my post and engage my second-class berth in the mail steamer _Orion_. Upon this reservation I paid a deposit of twenty pounds; and it seemed that when my passage had been fully paid, and one or two other necessary expenses met, I might still have my two hundred pounds intact to carry with me to England.