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134 blanket. It was a strange thing if this bright idea of mine couldn't save me. I rose infinitely superior to the stupid scruples which sprang up in me—half inward cries about a certain stain on my honour. I bade good-bye to the whole of them. I was no hero—no virtuous idiot. I had my senses left.

So I took the blanket under my arm and went to No 5 Stener's Street. I knocked, and entered the big, strange room for the first time. The bell on the door above my head gave a lot of violent jerks. A man enters from a side room, chewing, his mouth is full of food, and stands behind the counter.

"Eh, lend me sixpence on my eye-glasses?" said I. "I shall release them in a couple of days, without fail—eh?"

"No! they're steel, aren't they?"

"Yes."

"No; can't do it."

"Ah, no, I suppose you can't. Well, it was really at best only a joke. Well, I have a blanket with me for which, properly speaking, I have no longer any use, and it struck me that you might take it off my hands."

"I have—more's the pity—a whole store full of bed-clothes," he replied; and when I