Page:Arthur Stringer-The Loom of Destiny.djvu/25

The Undoing of Dinney Crockett seventy papers of an afternoon, he envied no one, shot his craps, tossed his pennies, and enjoyed his quiet smoke with the rest of "de gang," and had no particular kick to register against the things that were.

But continuous sleeping in the open, the perpetual smoking of cigarettes and the vilest of cigar stubs, and the immoderate consumption of over-ripe fruit, stale sandwiches, and well-larded doughnuts, while perhaps pleasant enough in their way, do not tend either to promote growth or to produce remarkable roundness of feature. And for this reason all men misunderstood Dinney.

Yet probably that was why he was so very thin. His cheeks were sunken, his eyes were hollow, and there was a general air of wistful hungriness about his woeful little face. Dinney knew this well enough; in fact, he inwardly rejoiced over it, being wise enough to realise why he could sell seventy papers while his more prosperous-looking rivals scarcely got rid of their paltry two dozen.

Indeed, it was nothing else than this intangible soul-hunger shadowing Dinney's face 13