He sat down with his back to the wall, despair in his soul.

A pitiful, weak smile came to him in the darkness, as he thought of the result of his endeavour to "show off" for the benefit of the heartless girl in rajah silk.

"What an ass I am," he groaned.

"Now she will never know." Sleep was claiming his senses.

He made a pillow of his coat, commended himself to the charity of rats and other horrors, and stretched his weary bones upon the relentless floor.
"No one will ever know," he murmured, his last waking thought being of a dear one at home..