And I started out this morning with the basket full of them all
so fine and pretty, and no sooner do I get on the 'Eath than the rain
comes down and wipes out the whole blooming lot, before I could sell
one. Look 'ere!"
He drew a bedraggled sheet of newspaper from the clothes-basket and
displayed a piteous sodden welter of sticks and gaudy pulp. At the sight
of it he broke down again and sobbed like a child.
"And there's not a bite in the 'ouse, nor not likely to be for days;
and I daren't go home and face the missus and the kids--and I wish I was
dead."
I had already seen many pitiful tragedies during my brief experience
with Campion; but the peculiar pitifulness of this one wrung my heart.
It taught me as nothing had done before how desperately humble are the
aspirations of the poor. I thought of the cosy comfort that awaited me
in my own home; the despair that awaited him in his.
I put my hand in my pocket.
"You seem to be a good chap," said I.
He shrugged his shoulders. The consciousness of applauded virtue offered
no consolation.
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