Then he bought four stamps and sent it home.
He was a free man.

He had three pounds fifteen in his pocket, a trifle of money in the savings-bank, no situation, and a wife and son to support.

The position was serious enough, yet never for a moment could he regard it without a new elasticity of spirit and a certain reckless optimism, the source of which he did not in the least understand.

He was to learn before long, however, that moods and their resulting effect upon the spirit were part of the penalty which he must pay for the greater variety of his new life.
He took a tiny bedroom somewhere Westminster way--a room in a large, solemn-looking house, decayed and shabby, but still showing traces of its former splendor.

That night he saw an Ibsen play from the front row of a deserted gallery, and afterwards, in melancholy mood, he walked homeward along the Embankment by the moonlight.