There would surely be some way or another of getting help when the right
time came! Now, there was the grocer in Groenlandsleret. Had I importuned
him every hour in the day since I sent in my application? Had I rung the
bell early and late, and been turned away? Why, I had not even applied
personally to him or sought an answer! It did not follow, surely, that it
must needs be an absolutely vain attempt.
Maybe I had luck with me this time. Luck often took such a devious course,
and I started for Groenlandsleret.
The last spasm that had darted through my head had exhausted me a little,
and I walked very slowly and thought over what I would say to him.
Perhaps he was a good soul; if the whim seized him he might pay me for my
work a shilling in advance, even without my asking for it. People of that
sort had sometimes the most capital ideas.
I stole into a doorway and blackened the knees of my trousers with spittle
to try and make them look a little respectable, left the parcel behind me
in a dark corner at the back of a chest, and entered the little shop.
A man is standing pasting together bags made of old newspaper.
"I would like to see Mr. Christie," I said.
"That's me!" replied the man.
"Indeed!" Well, my name was so-and-so. I had taken the liberty of sending
him an application, I did not know if it had been of any use.
He repeated my name a couple of times and commenced to laugh.
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