ntinued
to brood over his helplessness. He kept on thinking the same things all
the time, and the fixity of his thoughts made his head ache. At last,
craving for fresh air, he went into the Green Park and lay down on the
grass. He thought miserably of his deformity, which made it impossible for
him to go to the war. He went to sleep and dreamt that he was suddenly
sound of foot and out at the Cape in a regiment of Yeomanry; the pictures
he had looked at in the illustrated papers gave materials for his fancy;
and he saw himself on the Veldt, in khaki, sitting with other men round a
fire at night. When he awoke he found that it was still quite light, and
presently he heard Big Ben strike seven. He had twelve hours to get
through with nothing to do. He dreaded the interminable night. The sky was
overcast and he feared it would rain; he would have to go to a
lodging-house where he could get a bed; he had seen them advertised on
lamps outside houses in Lambeth: Good Beds sixpence; he had never been
inside one, and dreaded the foul smell and the vermin. He made up his mind
to stay in the open air if he possibly could. He remained in the park till
it was closed and then began to walk about. He was very tired. The thought
came to him that an accident would be a piece of luck, so that he could be
taken to a hospital and lie there, in a clean bed, for weeks. At midnight
he was so hungry that he could not go without food any more, so he went to
a coffee stall at Hyde Park Corner and ate a couple of potatoes and had a
cup of coffee. Then he walked again. He felt too restless to sleep, and he
had a horrible dread of being moved on by the police. He noted that he was
beginning to look upon the constable from quite a new angle. This was the
third night he had spent out. Now and then he sat on the benches in
Piccadilly and towards morning he strolled down to The Embankment. He
listened to the striking of Big Ben, marking every quarter of an hour, and
reckoned out how long it left till the city woke again. In the morning he
spent a few coppers on making himself neat and clean, bought a paper to
read the advertisements, and set out once more on the search for work.

He went on in this way for several days. He had very little food and began
to feel weak and ill, so that he had hardly enough energy to go on looking
for the work which seemed so desperately hard to find. He was growing used
now to the long waiting at the back of a shop on the