For a space the driver examined Richard's necktie in thoughtful silence and his expression softened.
"I reckon that 'ud suit me," he observed judicially.
"It would," said Richard, "and a hard boiled egg would suit me with a cup of coffee to moisten it."
Somehow the absence of a tie seemed to ease the passage of the simple fare down his gullet and Richard felt twice his own man as he turned jubilantly into the park and swung along the lower walk. The breakfast had heartened him and he was ready to face the future with a bold front.
"I'll take a bit of a constitutional," he said, "and later on roll round to a labour bureau and see what's doing."
He paused for a moment by the rails of Rotten Row and watched some early horsemen canter by. In one of them he recognised an old acquaintance and instinctively covered the lower half of his face with his hand. His chin felt prickly to the touch for his beard had grown rapidly during the night. As a scrupulous twice-a-day shaver his senses rebelled at the notion of weed upon his face. However, it was useless to lament over trifles like that.
"I know," he said to himself. "A dip in the Serpentine."
A quarter of an hour later he was cutting through the water with long powerful strokes. On returning to the shore he had the good fortune to borrow a cake of soap from another bather who appeared, from the modesty of his folded garments, to be in equally hazardous financial circumstances.
"To tell the honest truth," his new acquaintance confided, "I bagged that bit of soap from a Great Eastern Railway carriage. Managed to nip in and collar it when no one was looking. Suppose I'm a thief of sorts but a man loses self respect if he doesn't wash."
They sat side by side until the pale sunlight had partially dried them.