The letter struck at
Dicky's naked heart; but, not being officially entitled to a baby,
he could show no sign of trouble.
How Dicky won through the next four months, and what hope he kept
alight to force him into his work, no one dare say. He pounded on,
the seven-hundred-rupee passage as far away as ever, and his style
of living unchanged, except when he launched into a new filter.
There was the strain of his office-work, and the strain of his
remittances, and the knowledge of his boy's death, which touched the
boy more, perhaps, than it would have touched a man; and, beyond
all, the enduring strain of his daily life. Gray-headed seniors,
who approved of his thrift and his fashion of denying himself
everything pleasant, reminded him of the old saw that says:
"If a youth would be distinguished in his art, art, art,
He must keep the girls away from his heart, heart, heart."
And Dicky, who fancied he had been through every trouble that a man
is permitted to know, had to laugh and agree; with the last line of
his balanced Bank-book jingling in his head day and night.
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