He felt that, in losing these two, he had committed an act of base ingratitude.
He had been four years on the stage and had grown from youth into manhood.

But one day at three-and-twenty he found himself as poor in pence, though as rich in dreams, as at thirteen.
Necessity had compelled him to take what he could get.

This time it was a leading part; but a leading part in a crude melodrama in a fit-up company.

They had played in halls and concert rooms, on pier pavilions, in wretched little towns.

It was glorious July Weather and business was bad--so bad that the manager abruptly closed the treasury and disappeared, leaving the company stranded a hundred and fifty miles from London, with a couple of weeks' salary unpaid.
Paul was packing his clothes in the portmanteau that lay on the narrow bed in his tiny back bedroom, watched disconsolately by a sallow, careworn man who sat astride the one cane chair, his hat on the back of his head, the discoloured end of a cigarette between his lips.
"It's all very well for you to take it cheerfully," said the latter.
"You're young.