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Highgate about midday into view of the greatness of the city again. He
turned aside and sat down in a garden, with his back to a house that
overlooked all London. He was breathless, and his face was lowering, and
now the people no longer crowded upon him as they had done when first he
came to London, but lurked in the adjacent garden, and peeped from
cautious securities. They knew by now the thing was grimmer than they
had thought. "Why can't they lea' me alone?" growled young Caddles. "I
mus' eat. Why can't they lea' me alone?"
He sat with a darkling face, gnawing at his knuckles and looking down
over London. All the fatigue, worry, perplexity, and impotent wrath of
his wanderings was coming to a head in him. "They mean nothing," he
whispered. "They mean nothing. And they won't let me alone, and they
will get in my way." And again, over and over to himself, "Meanin'
nothing.
"Ugh! the little people!"
He bit harder at his knuckles and his scowl deepened. "Cuttin' chalk
for 'em," he whispered. "And all the world is theirs! I don't come
in--nowhere."
Presently with a spasm of sick anger he saw the now familiar form of a
policeman astride the garden wall.
"Lea' me alone," grunted the giant. "Lea' me alone."
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