The stall-keeper was just extinguishing his lights; the frosty sky showed a pale gleam of sunrise.
‘Hard times, I’m afraid,’ remarked Yule, as his beneficiary began to eat the luncheon with much appearance of grateful appetite.
‘Very hard times.’ He had a small, thin, colourless countenance, with large, pathetic eyes; a slight moustache and curly beard. His clothes were such as would be worn by some very poor clerk. ‘I came here an hour ago,’ he continued, ‘with the hope of meeting an acquaintance who generally goes from this station at a certain time. I have missed him, and in doing so I missed what I had thought my one chance of a breakfast. When one has neither dined nor supped on the previous day, breakfast becomes a meal of some importance.’
‘True. Take another slice.’
‘I am greatly obliged to you.’
‘Not at all. I have known hard times myself, and am likely to know worse.’
‘I trust not. This is the first time that I have positively begged. I should have been too much ashamed to beg of the kind of men who are usually at these places; they certainly have no money to spare. I was thinking of making an appeal at a baker’s shop, but it is very likely I should have been handed over to a policeman. Indeed I don’t know what I should have done; the last point of endurance was almost reached. I have no clothes but these I wear, and they are few enough for the season. Still, I suppose the waistcoat must have gone.’
He did not talk like a beggar who is trying to excite compassion, but with a sort of detached curiosity concerning the difficulties of his position.
‘You can find nothing to do?’ said the man of letters.
‘Positively nothing. By profession I am a surgeon, but it’s a long time since I practised. Fifteen years ago I was comfortably established at Wakefield; I was married and had one child. But my capital ran out, and my practice, never anything to boast of, fell to nothing. I succeeded in getting a place as an assistant to a man at Chester. We sold up, and started on the journey.’