Page 820 - of-human-bondage-

Big Ben, marking every quarter of an hour, and reckoned
out how long it left till the city woke again. In the morning
he spent a few coppers on making himself neat and clean,
bought a paper to read the advertisements, and set out once
more on the search for work.
He went on in this way for several days. He had very little
food and began to feel weak and ill, so that he had hardly
enough energy to go on looking for the work which seemed
so desperately hard to find. He was growing used now to
the long waiting at the back of a shop on the chance that
he would be taken on, and the curt dismissal. He walked
to all parts of London in answer to the advertisements, and
he came to know by sight men who applied as fruitlessly
as himself. One or two tried to make friends with him, but
he was too tired and too wretched to accept their advances.
He did not go any more to Lawson, because he owed him
five shillings. He began to be too dazed to think clearly and
ceased very much to care what would happen to him. He
cried a good deal. At first he was very angry with himself for
this and ashamed, but he found it relieved him, and some-
how made him feel less hungry. In the very early morning he
suffered a good deal from cold. One night he went into his
room to change his linen; he slipped in about three, when
he was quite sure everyone would be asleep, and out again
at five; he lay on the bed and its softness was enchanting; all
his bones ached, and as he lay he revelled in the pleasure of
it; it was so delicious that he did not want to go to sleep. He
was growing used to want of food and did not feel very hun-
gry, but only weak. Constantly now at the back of his mind

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