Then affecting the easy manner of one who was interesting himself for another person, he asked to have some private conversation with the usurer, to whom he communicated the immediate want that pressed upon him and his family.
It is impossible, however, to describe the various aspects and claims of misery which presented themselves at Skinadre's house.

The poor people flitted to and fro silently and dejectedly, wasted, feeble, and sickly--sometimes in small groups of twos and threes, and sometimes a solitary individual might be seen hastening with earnest but languid speed, as if the life of some dear child or beloved parent, of a husband or wife, or perhaps, the lives of a whole farcify, depended upon his or her arrival with food..