of raising the money; no one of whom he could borrow it; nothing he
could afford to sell--even if courage had supported him through
such a transaction. Triple idiot!

Bread turned to bran upon his hot palate; he could only swallow cups
of coffee. With trembling hands he finished the packing of his box
and portmanteau, then braced himself to the dreaded interview. Of
course, it involved no difficulty, the words once uttered; but, when
he was left alone again, he paced the room for a few minutes in
flush of mortification. It had made his headache worse.

The mode of his homeward journey he had easily arranged. His baggage
having been labelled for Twybridge, he himself would book as far as
his money allowed, then proceed on foot for the remaining distance.
With the elevenpence now in his pocket he could purchase a ticket to
a little town called Dent, and by a calculation from the railway
tariff he concluded that from Dent to Twybridge was some
five-and-twenty miles. Well and good. At the rate of four miles an
hour it would take him from half-past eleven to about six o'clock.
He could certainly reach home in time for supper.

At Dent station, ashamed to ask (like a tramp) the way to so remote
a place as Twybridge, he jotted down a list of intervening railway
stoppages, and thus was enabled to support the semblance of one who
strolls on for his pleasure. A small handbag he was obliged to
carry, and the clouded sky made his umbrella a requisite. On he
trudged steadily, for the most part by muddy ways, now through a
pleasant village, now in rural solitude. He had had the precaution,
at breakfast time, to store some pieces of bread in his pocket, and
after two or three hours this resource was welcome. Happily the air