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into sight--agape.
For a time I stood there, too overwhelmed by this new development to think
of the people.
At first I was too stunned to see the thing as any definite disaster--I
was just stunned, as a man is by some accidental violent blow. It is only
afterwards he begins to appreciate his specific injury.
"
Good Lord!"
I felt as though somebody was pouring funk out of a can down the back of
my neck. My legs became feeble. I had got the first intimation of what the
disaster meant for me. There was that confounded boy--sky high! I was
utterly left. There was the gold in the coffee-room--my only possession
on earth. How would it all work out? The general effect was of a gigantic
unmanageable confusion.
"I say," said the voice of the little man behind. "I say, you know."
I wheeled about, and there were twenty or thirty people, a sort of
irregular investment of people, all bombarding me with dumb interrogation,
with infinite doubt and suspicion. I felt the compulsion of their eyes
intolerably. I groaned aloud.
"I can't," I shouted. "I tell you I can't! I'm not equal to it! You must
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