CHAPTER V--WHAT IT ALL CAME TO
For two years or thereabouts, M'Kay and myself continued our labours
in the Drury Lane neighbourhood. There is a proverb that it is the
first step which is the most difficult in the achievement of any
object, and the proverb has been altered by ascribing the main part
of the difficulty to the last step. Neither the first nor the last
has been the difficult step with me, but rather what lies between.
The first is usually helped by the excitement and the promise of new
beginnings, and the last by the prospect of triumph; but the
intermediate path is unassisted by enthusiasm, and it is here we are
so likely to faint. M'Kay nevertheless persevered, supporting me,
who otherwise might have been tempted to despair, and at the end of
the two years we were still at our posts. We had, however, learned
something. We had learned that we could not make the slightest
impression on Drury Lane proper. Now and then an idler, or sometimes
a dozen, lounged in, but what was said was strange to them; they were
out of their own world as completely as if they were in another
planet, and all our efforts to reach them by simplicity of statement
and by talking about things which we supposed would interest them
utterly failed.
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