Page:The elephant man and other reminiscences.djvu/76

64 for his touching offer, but added that I could not possibly take the gold piece and begged him to put it back into his pocket again and present it to his wife when he reached home. At this he was very much upset. Pushing the coin along the table towards me with his forefinger, he said:

"Please, sir, do take the money, not for what it is worth but for what it has been to me. I am proud to say that since I left the hospital I have been starving. I have been looking for a ship. I have not slept in a bed since you saw me in the wards. Now, at last, I have got a ship and, thank God, I have kept the coin unbroken so that you might have it. I implore you to accept it."

I took it; but what could I say that would be adequate for such a gift as this? My attempt at thanks was as stumbling and as feeble as his had been outright; for I am not ashamed to confess that I was much upset.

I have received many presents from kindly patients—silver bowls, diamond scarf-pins, gold cigarette cases and the like, but how little is their value compared with this one small coin? As I picked it up from the table I thought of what it had cost. I thought of the tired man haunting the docks in search of a ship, often aching with hunger and at night sleeping in a shed, and yet