It was a little yarn-shop—a place in which I had never before set foot; a solitary man behind the counter (there was an office beyond, with a china plate on the door) was arranging things on the shelves and counter. I waited till the last customer had left the shop—a young lady with dimples. How happy she looked! I was not backward in trying to make an impression with the pin holding my coat together. I turned, and my chest heaved.
“Do you wish for anything?” queried the shopman.
“Is the chief in?” I asked.
“He is gone for a mountain tour in Jotunhejmen,” he replied. Was it anything very particular, eh?
“It concerns a couple of pence for food,” I said, and I tried to smile. “I am hungry, and haven’t a fraction.”
“Then you’re just about as rich as I am,” he remarked, and began to tidy some packages of wool.
“Ah, don’t turn me away—not now!” I said on the moment, with a cold feeling over my whole body. “I am really nearly dead with hunger; it is now many days since I have eaten anything.”
With perfect gravity, without saying a word, he began to turn his pockets inside out, one by one. Would I not believe him, upon his word? What?
“Only a halfpenny,” said I, “and you shall have a penny back in a couple of days.”
“My dear man, do you want me to steal out of the till?” he queried, impatiently.
“Yes,” said I. “Yes; take a halfpenny out of the till.”
“It won’t be I that will do that,” he observed; adding, “and let me tell you, at the same time, I’ve had about enough of this.”
I tore myself out, sick with hunger, and boiling with shame. I had turned myself into a dog for the sake of a miserable bone, and I had not got it. Nay, now there must be an end of this! It had really gone all too far with me. I had held myself up for many years, stood erect through so many hard hours, and now, all at once, I had sunk to the lowest form of begging. This one day had coarsened my whole mind, bespattered my soul with shamelessness. I had not been too abashed to stand and whine in the pettiest huckster’s shop, and what had it availed me?
But was I not then without the veriest atom of bread to put inside my mouth? I had succeeded in rendering myself a thing loathsome to myself. Yes, yes; but it must come to an end. Presently they would lock the outer door at home? I must hurry unless I wished to lie in the guardhouse again.
This gave me strength. Lie in that cell again I would not. With body bent forward, and my hands pressed hard against my left ribs to deaden the stings a little, I struggled on, keeping my eyes fastened upon the paving-stones that I might not be forced to bow to possible acquaintances, and hastened to the fire lookout. God be praised! it was only seven o’clock by the dial on Our Saviour’s; I had three hours yet before the door would be locked. What a fright I had been in!
Well, there was not a stone left unturned. I had done all I could. To think that I really could not succeed once in a whole day! If I told it no one could believe it; if I were to write it down they would say I had invented it. Not in a single place! Well, well, there is no help for it. Before all, don’t go and get pathetic again. Bah! how disgusting! I can assure you, it makes me have a loathing for you. If all hope is over, why, there is an end of it. Couldn’t I, for that matter, steal a handful of oats in the stable. A streak of light—a ray—yet I knew the stable was shut.
I took my ease, and crept home at a slow, snail’s pace. I felt thirsty, luckily for the first time through the whole day, and I went and sought about for a place where I could get a drink. I was a long distance away from the bazaar, and I would not ask at a private house. Perhaps, though, I could wait till I got home; it would take a quarter of an hour. It was not at all so certain that I could keep down a draught of water, either; my stomach no longer suffered in any way—I even felt nausea at the spittle I swallowed. But the buttons! I had not tried the buttons at all yet. There I stood, stock-still, and commenced to smile. Maybe there was a remedy, in spite of all! I wasn’t totally doomed. I should certainly get a penny for them; tomorrow I might raise another some place or other, and Thursday I might be paid for my newspaper article. I should just see it would come out all right. To think that I could really go and forget the buttons. I took them out of my pocket, and inspected them as I walked on again. My eyes grew dazed with joy. I did not see the street; I simply went on. Didn’t I know exactly the big pawnshop—my refuge in the dark evenings, with my
