I don't want to be disagreeable to a old lodger, but then reason _is_ reason, ain't it ?' That Saturday night hunger drove him out.

He stumped painfully into the busy region on the south side of London Bridge, and there, at midnight, he succeeded in begging a handful of fried potatoes from a fish-shop that was just closing.

It was all he could do, after a dozen vain efforts to earn a copper.
But, when he got home in the early morning, a strange thing had happened.

On his table lay half a loaf of bread, a piece of butter, and some tea twisted up in paper.

How came these things here?
He was in anguish lest Lydia had left them, lest Lydia had somehow discovered his condition and had come in his absence.
But it was not so.