Page 818 - of-human-bondage-

‘I say, I’m rather broke till the end of the month,’ he said
as soon as he found an opportunity. ‘I wish you’d lend me
half a sovereign, will you?’
It was incredible the difficulty he found in asking for
money; and he remembered the casual way, as though al-
most they were conferring a favour, men at the hospital had
extracted small sums out of him which they had no inten-
tion of repaying.
‘Like a shot,’ said Lawson.
But when he put his hand in his pocket he found that he
had only eight shillings. Philip’s heart sank.
‘Oh well, lend me five bob, will you?’ he said lightly.
‘Here you are.’
Philip went to the public baths in Westminster and spent
sixpence on a bath. Then he got himself something to eat.
He did not know what to do with himself in the afternoon.
He would not go back to the hospital in case anyone should
ask him questions, and besides, he had nothing to do there
now; they would wonder in the two or three departments
he had worked in why he did not come, but they must think
what they chose, it did not matter: he would not be the first
student who had dropped out without warning. He went to
the free library, and looked at the papers till they wearied
him, then he took out Stevenson’s New Arabian Nights; but
he found he could not read: the words meant nothing to
him, and he continued to brood over his helplessness. He
kept on thinking the same things all the time, and the fix-
ity of his thoughts made his head ache. At last, craving for
fresh air, he went into the Green Park and lay down on the

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