He had only got a few shillings in the world now, except the value
of his stock, which was very little; he could get perhaps L3 or L4
by selling his music and what few pictures and pieces of furniture
still belonged to him. He thought of trying to live by his pen, but
his writing had dropped off long ago; he no longer had an idea in
his head. Look which way he would he saw no hope; the end, if it had
not actually come, was within easy distance, and he was almost face to
face with actual want. When he saw people going about poorly clad,
or even without shoes and stockings, he wondered whether within a
few months' time he too should not have to go about in this way. The
remorseless, resistless hand of fate had caught him in its grip and
was dragging him down, down, down. Still he staggered on, going his
daily rounds, buying second-hand clothes, and spending his evenings in
cleaning and mending them.
One morning, as he was returning from a house at the West End
where he had bought some clothes from one of the servants, he was
struck by a small crowd which had gathered round a space that had been
railed off on the grass near one of the paths in the Green Park.
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