I'm just me by myself, all alone." A tear made a white course down his grimy cheek, then another and another.

He brushed them impatiently away with the cap he still held in his hand.
Rising abruptly, he turned away from the window, and the hot air of the room again smote him.

The smoking lamp had blackened the chimney, and as he bent to turn it down, he caught his reflection in a small mirror over the table.

What the bruises and swelling had left undone the cheap mirror completed.

He started back.