“Ain’t I just!” he exclaimed.  “It’s been and gone and ruined me, this day has.  Look ’ere, guv’nor, I’ll tell you all about it.  I’ve been out of work, see?  I was in ’orspital for three months and I couldn’t get nothing regular to do when I come out.  I’m a packer by trade.  I did odd jobs, see, and the wife she earned a little, too, and we managed to keep things going and to scrape together five shillings, that’s three months’ savings, against Whitsun Bank Holiday.  And as the weather was so fine, I laid it all out in paper windmills to sell to the kids on ’Amstead ’Eath.  And I started out this morning with the basket full of them all so fine and pretty, and no sooner do I get on the ’Eath than the rain comes down and wipes out the whole blooming lot, before I could sell one.  Look ’ere!”

He drew a bedraggled sheet of newspaper from the clothes-basket and displayed a piteous sodden welter of sticks and gaudy pulp.  At the sight of it he broke down again and sobbed like a child.

“And there’s not a bite in the ’ouse, nor not likely to be for days; and I daren’t go home and face the missus and the kids—­and I wish I was dead.”

I had already seen many pitiful tragedies during my brief experience with Campion; but the peculiar pitifulness of this one wrung my heart.  It taught me as nothing had done before how desperately humble are the aspirations of the poor.  I thought of the cosy comfort that awaited me in my own home; the despair that awaited him in his.

I put my hand in my pocket.

“You seem to be a good chap,” said I.

He shrugged his shoulders.  The consciousness of applauded virtue offered no consolation.  I drew out a couple of half-crowns and threw them into the basket.

“For the missus and the kids,” said I.

He picked them out of the welter, and holding them in his hand, looked at me stupidly.

“Can you afford it, guv’nor?”

At first I thought this remark was some kind of ill-conditioned sarcasm; but suddenly I realised that dripping wet and covered with mud from head to foot, with a shapeless, old, green, Homburg hat drooping forlornly about my ears, I did not fulfil his conception of the benevolent millionaire.  I laughed, and rose from the bench.

“Yes.  Quite well.  Better luck next time.”

I nodded a good-bye, and walked away.  After a minute, he came running after me.

“’Ere,” said he, “I ain’t thanked yer.  Gawd knows how I’m going to do it.  I can’t!  But, ’ere—­would you mind if I chucked a lot of the stuff into the river and told the missus I had sold it, and just got back my money?  She’s proud, she is, and has never accepted a penny in charity in her life.  It’s only because it would be better for ’er.”

He looked at me with such earnest appeal that I saw that the saving of his wife’s pride was a serious matter.

“Of course,” said I, “and here’s a few ha’pence to add to it, so as to give colour to the story.”