He stopped directly, and we both stared at one another fixedly. “A halfpenny for milk!” he whined, twisting his head askew.
So that was how the wind blew. I felt in my pockets and said: “For milk, eh? Hum‑m—money’s scarce these times, and I don’t really know how much you are in need of it.”
“I haven’t eaten a morsel since yesterday in Drammen; I haven’t got a farthing, nor have I got any work yet!”
“Are you an artisan?”
“Yes; a binder.”
“A what?”
“A shoe-binder; for that matter, I can make shoes too.”
“Ah, that alters the case,” said I, “you wait here for some minutes and I shall go and get a little money for you; just a few pence.”
I hurried as fast as I could down Pyle Street, where I knew of a pawnbroker on a second-floor (one, besides, to whom I had never been before). When I got inside the hall I hastily took off my waistcoat, rolled it up, and put it under my arm; after which I went upstairs and knocked at the office door. I bowed on entering, and threw the waistcoat on the counter.
“One-and-six,” said the man.
“Yes, yes, thanks,” I replied. “If it weren’t that it was beginning to be a little tight for me, of course I wouldn’t part with it.”
I got the money and the ticket, and went back. Considering all things, pawning that waistcoat was a capital notion. I would have money enough over for a plentiful breakfast, and before evening my thesis on the “Crimes of Futurity” would be ready. I began to find existence more alluring; and I hurried back to the man to get rid of him.
“There it is,” said I. “I am glad you applied to me first.”
The man took the money and scrutinised me closely. At what was he standing there staring? I had a feeling that he particularly examined the knees of my trousers, and his shameless effrontery bored me. Did the scoundrel imagine that I really was as poor as I looked? Had I not as good as begun to write an article for half-a-sovereign? Besides, I had no fear whatever for the future. I had many irons in the fire. What on earth business was it of an utter stranger if I chose to stand him a drink on such a lovely day? The man’s look annoyed me, and I made up my mind to give him a good dressing-down before I left him. I threw back my shoulders, and said:
“My good fellow, you have adopted a most unpleasant habit of staring at a man’s knees when he gives you a shilling.”
He leant his head back against the wall and opened his mouth widely; something was working in that empty pate of his, and he evidently came to the conclusion that I meant to best him in some way, for he handed me back the money. I stamped on the pavement, and, swearing at him, told him to keep it. Did he imagine I was going to all that trouble for nothing? If all came to all, perhaps I owed him this shilling; I had just recollected an old debt; he was standing before an honest man, honourable to his fingertips—in short, the money was his. Oh, no thanks were needed; it had been a pleasure to me. Goodbye!
I went on. At last I was freed from this work-ridden plague, and I could go my way in peace. I turned down Pyle Street again, and stopped before a grocer’s shop. The whole window was filled with eatables, and I decided to go in and get something to take with me.
“A piece of cheese and a French roll,” I said, and threw my sixpence on to the counter.
“Bread and cheese for the whole of it?” asked the woman, ironically, without looking up at me.
“For the whole sixpence? Yes,” I answer, unruffled.
I took them up, bade the fat old woman good morning, with the utmost politeness, and sped, full tilt, up Castle Hill to the park.
I found a bench to myself, and began to bite greedily into my provender. It did me good; it was a long time since I had had such a square meal, and, by degrees, I felt the same sated quiet steal over me that one feels after a good long cry. My courage rose mightily. I could no longer be satisfied with writing an article about anything so simple and straight-ahead as the “Crimes of Futurity,” that any ass might arrive at, ay, simply deduct from history. I felt capable of a much greater effort than that; I was in a fitting mood to overcome difficulties, and I decided on a treatise, in three sections, on “Philosophical Cognition.” This would, naturally, give me an opportunity of crushing pitiably some of Kant’s sophistries … but, on taking out my writing materials to commence work, I discovered that I no longer owned a pencil: I had forgotten it in the pawn-office. My pencil was lying in my waistcoat pocket.
Good Lord! how everything seems to take a delight in thwarting me today! I swore a few times, rose from the seat, and took a couple of turns up and down the path. It was very quiet all around me; down near the Queen’s arbour two nursemaids were trundling their perambulators; otherwise, there was not a creature anywhere in sight. I was in a thoroughly embittered temper; I paced up and down before my seat like a maniac. How strangely awry things seemed to go! To think that an article in three sections should be downright stranded by the simple fact of
