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what, no matter how, began to wake and spur him. Suppose he
pawned his watch? But no, on Christmas-day - this was
Christmas-day! - the pawnshop would be closed. Suppose he
went to the public-house close by at Blackhall, and offered
the watch, which was worth ten pounds, in payment for a meal
of bread and cheese? The incongruity was too remarkable; the
good folks would either put him to the door, or only let him
in to send for the police. He turned his pockets out one
after another; some San Francisco tram-car checks, one cigar,
no lights, the pass-key to his father's house, a pocket-
handkerchief, with just a touch of scent: no, money could be
raised on none of these. There was nothing for it but to
starve; and after all, what mattered it? That also was a
door of exit.
He crept close among the bushes, the wind playing round him
like a lash; his clothes seemed thin as paper, his joints
burned, his skin curdled on his bones. He had a vision of a
high-lying cattle-drive in California, and the bed of a dried
stream with one muddy pool, by which the vaqueros had
encamped: splendid sun over all, the big bonfire blazing, the
strips of cow browning and smoking on a skewer of wood; how
warm it was, how savoury the steam of scorching meat! And
then again he remembered his manifold calamities, and
burrowed and wallowed in the sense of his disgrace and shame.
And next he was entering Frank's restaurant in Montgomery
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