"Oh yes, but that doesn't mean anything.
You can't get that for them."
Philip did not say anything for a moment.
He was trying to collect himself.
"D'you mean to say they're worth nothing at all?"
"Oh, I don't say that.
Of course they're worth something, but you see, nobody's buying them now."
"Then you must just sell them for what you can get."
Macalister looked at Philip narrowly.
He wondered whether he was very hard hit.
"I'm awfully sorry, old man, but we're all in the same boat.
No one thought the war was going to hang on this way.
I put you into them, but I was in myself too."
"It doesn't matter at all," said Philip.
"One has to take one's chance."
He moved back to the table from which he had got up to talk to Macalister.
He was dumfounded; his head suddenly began to ache furiously; but he did not want them to think him unmanly.
He sat on for an hour. He laughed feverishly at everything they said.
At last he got up to go.
"You take it pretty coolly," said Macalister, shaking hands with him. "I don't suppose anyone likes losing between three and four hundred pounds."
When Philip got back to his shabby little room he flung himself on his bed, and gave himself over to his despair.
He kept on regretting his folly bitterly; and though he told himself that it was absurd to regret for what had happened was inevitable just because it had happened, he could not help himself.
He was utterly miserable.
He could not sleep.
He remembered all the ways he had wasted money during the last few years.
His head ached dreadfully.
The following evening there came by the last post the statement of his account.
He examined his pass-book.
He found that when he had paid everything he would have seven pounds left.
Seven pounds!
He was thankful he had been able to pay.
It would have been horrible to be obliged to confess to Macalister that he had not the money.
He was dressing in the eye-department during the summer session, and he had bought an ophthalmoscope off a student who had one to sell.
He had not paid for this, but he lacked the courage to tell the student that he wanted to go back on his bargain.
Also he had to buy certain books.
He had about five pounds to go on with.
It lasted him six weeks; then he wrote to his uncle a letter which he thought very business-like; he said that owing to the war he had had grave losses and could not go on with his studies unless his uncle came to his help.
He suggested that the Vicar should lend him a hundred and fifty pounds paid over the next eighteen months in monthly instalments; he would pay interest on this and promised to refund the capital by degrees when he began to earn money.
He would be qualified in a year and a half at the latest, and he could be pretty sure then of getting an assistantship at three pounds a week.
His uncle wrote back that he could do nothing. It was not fair to ask him to sell out when everything was at its worst, and the little he had he felt that his duty to himself made it necessary for him to keep in case of illness.
He ended the letter with a little homily.
He had warned Philip time after time, and Philip had never paid any attention to him; he could not honestly say he was surprised; he had long expected that this would be the end of Philip's extravagance and want of balance.
Philip grew hot and cold when he read this.
It had never occurred to him that his uncle would refuse, and he burst into furious anger; but this was succeeded by utter blankness: if his uncle would not help him he could not go on at the hospital.
Panic seized him and, putting aside his pride, he wrote again to the Vicar of Blackstable, placing the case before him more urgently; but perhaps he did not explain himself properly and his uncle did not realise in what desperate straits he was, for he answered that he could not change his mind; Philip was twenty-five and really ought to be earning his living.
When he died Philip would come into a little, but till then he refused to give him a penny.
Philip felt in the letter the satisfaction of a man who for many years had disapproved of his courses and now saw himself justified.
XCIX
Philip began to pawn his clothes.
He reduced his expenses by eating only one meal a day beside his breakfast; and he ate it, bread and butter and cocoa, at four so that it should last him till next morning.