There's a poem by Robert Service in which the poet, down on his luck and hungry is wandering along the bookseller's stall and sees a book he wrote. He picks it up and leafs through it, finding the handwritten dedication "To my adorable Odette"...

And then I stared in consternation -
The pages were unsevered yet.
Yet she inspired its finest numbers!
And then a memory awoke
From half a century of slumbers.
A note, a mille [thousand francs] did I not poke
Within its leaves? Who would believe it!
As fresh and fair it was today,
And so I hastened to retrieve it,
Put back the book and walked away.

They say bread cast upon the waters
Returneth after many days.
Odette was one of Joy's fair daughters,
Yet sadly fickle in her ways.
Now I've wherewith for bread and butter
And yet, somehow, my spirit grieves
As, paying garret rent, I mutter
"The trollop didn't cut the leaves!"