against the sky; occasionally an empty truck trundled over the
hollow docks with a sound of distant cannon. A weakness, a little
trembling that seemed to come from the pit of his stomach, began upon
Vandover. He was very hungry. Evidently the slice of cocoanut was no
longer effective. He swallowed it and lit a cigarette, one of the
half-dozen still left of the pack he had bought the Tuesday before.

He smoked the cigarette slowly, inhaling as much of the smoke as he
could. This quieted him for an hour, but he had the folly to smoke again
at the end of that time, and at once--as he might have known--was hungry
again. Until dark he struggled along, drinking water continually,
chewing chips of wood, toothpicks, bits of straw, anything so that the
action of his jaws might cheat the demands of his stomach. Toward
half-past seven in the evening he returned to his room in the Reno
House. If he could get to sleep that would be best of all. On the stairs
of the hotel, while going up to his room, the strong smell of cooking
onions came suddenly to his nostrils. It was delicious. Vandover
breathed in the warm savour with long sighs, closing his eyes; a great
feebleness overcame him. He asked himself how he could get through the
next twelve hours.

An hour later he went to bed, hiccoughing from the water he had been
drinking all day. By this time he had torn the paper from one of his
cigarettes and was chewing the tobacco. This was his last resort, an
expedient which he fell back upon only in great extremity, as it
invariably made him sick to his stomach. He slept a little, but in half
an hour was broad awake again, gagging and retching dreadfully. There
was nothing on his stomach to throw up, and now at length the hunger in
him raged like a wolf. Vandover was in veritable torment.

He could not keep his thoughts away from the money in his pocket, a
nickel and two dimes. He could eat if he wanted to, could satisfy this
incessant craving. At every moment the temptation grew stronger. Why
should he wait until morning? He had the money; it was only a matter of
a few minutes' walk to the nearest saloon. But he set his face against
this desire; he had held out so long that it would be a pity to give in
now; he was not so very hungry after all. No, no; he would not give in,
he was strong enough; as long as he used his will he need not succumb.
It was just a question of asserting his strength of mind, of calling up
the better part of h