Thrown back in his seat, his legs stiffly out and arms hanging down, he nodded slightly several times.

You could not conceive a sadder spectacle.

Suddenly he lifted his head; he sat up; he slapped his thigh.

"Ah! what a chance missed! My God! what a chance missed!" he blazed out, but the ring of the last "missed" resembled a cry wrung out by pain.
'He was silent again with a still, far-away look of fierce yearning after that missed distinction, with his nostrils for an instant dilated, sniffing the intoxicating breath of that wasted opportunity.

If you think I was either surprised or shocked you do me an injustice in more ways than one! Ah, he was an imaginative beggar! He would give himself away; he would give himself up.