weight with me that I decided at once upon another man."

"So the place is filled?"

"Yes."

"A--h, well, then there's nothing more to be said about it!"

"No! I'm sorry, but--"

"Good-evening!" said I.

Fury welled up in me, blazing with brutal strength. I fetched my parcel
from the entry, set my teeth together, jostled against the peaceful folk
on the footpath, and never once asked their pardon.

As one man stopped and set me to rights rather sharply for my behaviour, I
turned round and screamed a single meaningless word in his ear, clenched
my fist right under his nose, and stumbled on, hardened by a blind rage
that I could not control.

He called a policeman, and I desired nothing better than to have one
between my hands just for one moment. I slackened my pace intentionally in
order to give him an opportunity of overtaking me; but he did not come.
Was there now any reason whatever that absolutely every one of one's most
earnest and most persevering efforts should fail? Why, too, had I written
1828? In what way did that infernal date concern me? Here I was going
about starving, so that my entrails wriggle together in me like worms, and
it was, as far as I knew, not decreed in the book of fate that anything in
the shape of food would turn up later on in the day.