"I don't know why I obeyed, for it was late, and I did not know the voice, but something in the impatient rattling of the door which accompanied the words affected me in spite of myself, and I slowly opened my shop to this midnight customer.
"'You must be hungry,' I began. But the person who had crowded in as soon as the opening was large enough wouldn't let me finish.
"'Bread! I want bread, or crackers, or anything that you can find easiest,' he gasped, like a man who had been running. 'Here's money'; and he poked into my hand a bill so stiff that it rattled. 'It's more than enough,' he hastened to say, as I hesitated over it, 'but never mind that; I'll come for the change in the morning.'
"'Who are you? I cried. 'You are not Blind Willy, I'm sure.'
"But his only answer was 'Bread!' while he leaned so hard against the counter I felt it shake.
"I could not stand that cry of 'Bread!' so I groped about in the dark, and found him a stale loaf, which I put into his arms, with a short, 'There! Now tell me what your name is.'
"But at this he seemed to shrink into himself; and muttering something that might pass for thanks, he stumbled towards the door and rushed hastily out. Running after him, I listened eagerly to his steps. They went up the hill."
"And the money? What about the money?" asked the coroner. "Didn't he come back for the change?"
"No. I put it in the till, thinking it was a dollar bill. But when I came to look at it in the morning, it was a twenty; yes, sirs, a twenty!"
This was startling. The coroner and the constable looked at each other before looking again at him.