He longed for books.  The fragmentary glimpses of history and geography in the Board school standard whetted without satisfying his imagination.  There was not a book in the house in Budge Street, and he had never a penny to buy one.  Sometimes Button would bring home a dirty newspaper, which Paul would steal and read in secret, but its contents seemed to lack continuity.  He thirsted for a story.  Once a generous boy, since dead-he was too good to live had given him a handful of penny dreadfuls, whence he had derived his knowledge of pirates and Red Indians.  Too careless and confident, he had left them about the kitchen, and his indignant mother had used them to light the fire.  The burning of his library was an enduring tragedy.  He realized that it must be reconstituted; but how?  His nimble wit hit on a plan.  Vagrant as an unowned dog, he could roam the streets at pleasure.  Why should he not sell newspapers-in a quarter of the town, be it understood, remote from both factory and Budge Street?  He sold newspapers for three weeks before he was found out.  Then he was chastised and forced to go on selling newspapers with no profit to himself, for his person was rigorously searched and coppers confiscated as soon as he came home.  But during the three weeks’ traffic on his own account he had amassed a sufficient hoard of pennies for the purchase of several books in gaudy paper covers exposed for sale in the little stationer’s shop round the corner.  Soon he discovered that if he could batik a copper or two on his way home his mother would be none the wiser.  The stationer became his banker, and when the amount of the deposit equaled the price of a book, Paul withdrew his money’s worth.  So a goodly library of amazing rubbish was stored by degrees under the scullery slab, until it outgrew safe accommodation; whereupon Paul transferred the bulk of it to a hole in a bit of waste ground, a deserted brickfield on the ragged outskirts of the town.  At last misfortune befell him.  One dreary afternoon of rain he dropped his new bundle of papers in the mud of the roadway.  To avoid death he had to spring from the path of a thundering tramcar.  A heavy cart ran over the bundle.  While he was ruefully and hastily gathering the papers together, a band of street children swooped down and kicked them lustily about the filth.  He was battling with one urchin when a policeman grabbed him.  With an elusive twist he escaped and ran like a terrified hare.  Disaster followed, and that was the end of his career as a newsvendor.

Greater leisure for reading, however, compensated the loss of the occasional penny.  He read dazzling tales of dukes with palaces (like Chudley Court), and countesses with ropes of diamonds in their hair, who all bore a resemblance to the fragrant one.  And dukes and countesses lived the most resplendent lives, and spoke such beautiful language, and had such a way with them!  He felt a curious pride in being able to enter into all their haughty emotions.