bright flame of his look, the person who had accosted him shrank back;
his pinched and pale face showed surprise, fear; almost incoherently he
began to stammer. Steele's arm had half raised; it now fell to his side;
his eyes continued to study, with swift, piercing glance, the man who
had called. He was not a fear-inspiring object; hunger and privation
seemed so to have gripped him that now he presented but a pitiable
shadow of himself.

Did John Steele notice that changed, abject aspect, that bearing, devoid
totally of confidence? All pretense of a certain coster smartness that
he remembered, had vanished; the hair, once curled with cheap
jauntiness, hung now straight and straggling; a tawdry ornament which
had stood out in the past, absurdly distinct on a bright cravat, with
many other details that had served to build up a definite type of
individual, seemed to have dropped off into oblivion.

Steele looked about; they two, as far as he could see, were alone. He
regarded the man again; it was very strange, as if a circular stage, the
buskined world's tragic-comic wheel of fortune, had turned, and a person
whom he had seen in one character had reappeared in another.

"I ask your pardon." The fellow found his voice. "I'll not be troubling
you further, Mr. Steele."

The other's expression altered; he could have laughed; he had been
prepared for almost anything, but not this. The man's tones were
hopeless; very deferential, however.

"You were about to beg--of me?" John Steele smiled, as if, despite his
own danger, despite his physical pangs, he found the scene odd,