Bunting turned round, opened the door, and quickly he went out into
the dark hall--they had given up lighting the gas there some time
ago--and opened the front door.

Walking down the small flagged path outside, he flung open the iron
gate which gave on to the damp pavement. But there he hesitated.
The coppers in his pocket seemed to have shrunk in number, and he
remembered ruefully how far Ellen could make even four pennies go.

Then a boy ran up to him with a sheaf of evening papers, and Bunting,
being sorely tempted--fell. "Give me a Sun," he said roughly, "Sun
or Echo!"

But the boy, scarcely stopping to take breath, shook his head. "Only
penny papers left," he gasped. "What'll yer 'ave, sir?"

With an eagerness which was mingled with shame, Bunting drew a penny
out of his pocket and took a paper--it was the Evening Standard--
from the boy's hand.

Then, very slowly, he shut the gate and walked back through the raw,
cold air, up the flagged path, shivering yet full of eager, joyful
anticipation.

Thanks to that penny he had just spent so recklessly he would pass
a happy hour, taken, for once, out of his anxious, despondent,
miserable self. It irritated him shrewdly to know that these moments
of respite from carking care would not be shared with his poor wife,
with careworn, troubled Ellen.