He stood looking at the ground with his hands deep in his trousers pockets. He seemed to be deep in thought, but he was not thinking. At least there was no concrete idea fixed in his mind. Two facts rumbled about in his brain, making that loud primeval noise, which is the beginning of thought and which tired people experience when the jaded brain has spun out the last threads of its energy. There were two facts in his brain. First, the fact of his meeting with McPhillip. Second, the fact of his having no money to buy a bed for the night.
These two facts stood together in an amorphous mass. But he could not summon up courage to tackle them and place them in proper juxtaposition and reason out their relationship. He just stood looking at the ground.
Then a drunken bookmaker’s clerk named Shanahan brushed against him. He stepped aside with a muttered oath. He pulled one hand from his pocket to strike, with the fingers extended in the shape of a bird’s claw. Shanahan, doubled up in the middle by the helplessness of intoxication, stared at Gypo with blue eyes that had gone almost completely red. Gypo turned away with a shrug of his shoulders. At any other time he would gladly have availed himself of this opportunity of begging a shilling from Shanahan. Shanahan was always good for the loan of a shilling when he was drunk. A shilling would procure Gypo a bed for the night and leave a little for a light breakfast in the morning. Ten minutes ago, a rencontre of this sort would have been a godsend to Gypo. But now, those two cursed facts stood in his brain, making him unconscious of everything else.
He walked out of the House and up the lane towards B⸺ Road.
He walked with his hands deep in his pockets, slowly, with his thighs brushing on the insides as he walked. He seemed to haul his big boots after him, bringing them as near the ground as possible. His hips moved up and down as his feet went forward. His eyes were on the ground. His lips were distended outwards. His little torn, brown, slouch hat was perched incongruously on the top of his head, much too small for his large square skull, with the brim turned up closely all around. When a squall of wind, laden with little sharp hailstones, struck him across the face and body, his clothes puffed out and he curled up his short stubby nose in an angry grin.
He was looking into the window of a saddler’s shop in Dame Street, when the relationship between the two facts became known to him. He was looking at a pair of bright spurs and his face contorted suddenly. His eyes bulged as if he were taken with a fit of terror. He looked about him suspiciously, as if he were about to steal something for the first time. Then he rushed away hurriedly. He moved through lanes and alleyways to the river. He crossed the street to the river wall. He leaned his elbows on the wall and spat into the dark water. With his chin resting on his arms, he stood perfectly still, thinking.
He was contempating the sudden discovery that his mind had made, about the relationship between his having no money for a bed and his having met Francis Joseph McPhillip, who was wanted for murder in connection with the farm-labourers’ strike at M⸺ in the previous October. A terrific silence reigned within his head.
Now and again he looked around him with a kind of panting noise. He snorted and smelled the air and screwed up his eyes. Then he leaned over the wall again and rested his chin on his crossed hands. He was that way for half an hour. Then at last he drew himself up straight. He stretched his arms above his head. He yawned. He stuck his hands in his trousers pockets. He stared at the ground. Then with his eyes on the ground he walked away at the same slouching pace as before.
He crossed the river and traversed a maze of side streets, with his eyes always on the ground, until he reached the corner of a dark side street, that had a bright lamp hanging over a doorway, halfway down on the right-hand side. That was a police-station. He stared at the lamp with his eyes wide open for several moments. Almost a minute. Then he said “Huh” out loud. Then he looked around him cautiously on all sides.
The street was empty. Rain drizzled slowly. He examined the street, the warehouses on his side of the street, the blank wall on the other side. Then his eyes came back to the bright lamp that hung above the door of the police-station. He sighed deeply and began to walk slowly, ever so slowly and ponderously, towards the lamp.
He walked up the steps, steadily, one at a time, making a loud noise. He kicked the swing door open with his foot without taking his hands out of his pockets. In the hallway, a constable in a black, cone-shaped, night helmet stood facing him,
