Out of this—anywhere. Feverish haste in dressing. Robbed, too—penniless.
What does that matter?
It matters greatly, it would seem, for here is a hulking, pock-marked villain demanding money, and a shrieking, night-gowned virago hauling the fugitive back up the stairs with obscenities which match the place and himself and her.
Then a flash in the heart, as if Hell’s flame of shame and Heaven’s lightning of righteous wrath lit it together. The pock-marked rascal is lying quiet on the ruddled bricks at the foot of the stairs. The woman’s Voice curses until the corner is turned. A door slams. He is hatless and unwashed and dishevelled, standing in the Blackfriars Road.
Never to be forgotten the taste of the morning river air; never to be forgotten the grain of the stone on which his elbows leaned, or the tawny coil of the waters below him; never to be forgotten the purple dome and dark cross of Paul’s, with its edge of gold on one side and the rosy east away and away beyond it.
His thoughts were the gasps of a devil’s agony. He felt in gushes, like the welling of heart’s blood. His soul clamoured ‘Beast, beast, beast!’ at him; ‘how dare you foul my dwelling-place!’
A warm trickle on his left hand, which had some dim associations of physical pain, bade him look at it; there was a yellow splinter of tooth sticking there. He warmed to think he had struck home, and then chilled as he asked: ‘Wasn’t the poor devil at his proper trade?’ He pulled out the jagged splinter, and bound the wound with his handkerchief.
To be twenty hours younger! To be only ten hours younger!
Ting, ting, clang, clang ‘Ting, ting, dang, clang! Ting, ting, clang, clang! Ting, ting, clang, clang! The bells of the clock-tower at Westminster. He made a fool’s rhyme to them:
‘Down—In—my—home—‘neath—-the—clear—sky—No—thing—they—know —and—naught—care—I.’