By the time the cab drew up, Hood
had convinced himself of this. He was in better spirits than he had been
for many a day.

'Can you change me a ten-pound note?' were his first words to the
hatter. 'If you can't, I must go elsewhere; I have nothing smaller.'

The salesman hesitated.

'You want a silk hat?'

'Yes, but not an expensive one.'

A pen was brought, and Hood was requested to endorse the note. What
security--under the circumstances--such a proceeding could give, the
hatter best knew; he appeared satisfied, and counted out his sovereigns.
Hood paid the cabman, and walked off briskly towards the office of Legge
Brothers.

He stopped in the middle of the pavement as if a shot had struck him.
Supposing Dagworthy had no recollection of a ten-pound note having been
lost, nor of any note having been lost; and supposing it occurred to him
that he, Hood, had in reality found a larger sum, had invented the story
of the lost hat, and was returning a portion only of his discovery, to
gain the credit of honesty? Such an idea could only possess the brain of
a man whose life had been a struggle amid the chicaneries and
despicabilities of commerce; who knew that a man's word was never
trusted where there could enter the slightest suspicion of an advantage
to himself in lying; whose daily terror had been lest some error, some
luckless chance, should put him within the nets of criminality. It is
the deepest curse of such a life as his that it directs the imagination
in channels of meanness, and preoccupies the thought with sordid fears.
What would it avail him, in the present instance, to call the shopman to
witness? The note, ten to one, would be paid away, and here also a man's
word was worth nothing. But Dagworthy might merely think such an
accusation: ay, that would be the worst. To lie henceforth under
suspicion of dishonesty: that meant, to lose his place before long, on
some pretence.

And he felt that, in spite of absolute sincerity, he could not stand
before Dagworthy and tell his tale with the face and voice of an honest
man,--felt it with a horrible certainty. In a man of Hood's character,
this state of mind was perfectly natural. Not only was he weakly
constructed, but his incessant ill-fortune had done him that last wrong
which social hardship can inflict upon the individual, it, had
undermined his self-respect. Having been so often treated like a dog, he
had come to expect such treatment, and, what was wo