He seemed to
be the only person awake on the Common, and wandered out of it and
down through the empty streets, filled at times with the moony light
of the waning electrics, and at times merely with the grey dawn. A
man came along putting out the gas, and some milk-carts rattled over
the pavement. By and by a market-wagon, with the leaves and roots of
cabbages sticking out from the edges of the canvas that covered it,
came by, and Lemuel followed it; he did not know what else to do,
and it went so slow that he could keep up, though the famine that
gnawed within him was so sharp sometimes that he felt as if he must
fall down. He was going to drop into a doorway and rest, but when he
came to it he found on an upper step a man folded forward like a
limp bundle, snoring in a fetid, sodden sleep, and, shocked into new
strength, he hurried on. At last the wagon came to a place that he
saw was a market. There were no buyers yet, but men were flitting
round under the long arcades of the market-houses, with lanterns
under their arms, among boxes and barrels of melons, apples,
potatoes, onions, beans, carrots, and other vegetables, which the
country carts as they arrived continually unloaded. The smell of
peaches and cantaloupes filled the air, and made Lemuel giddy as he
stood and looked at the abundance. The men were not saying much; now
and then one of them priced something, the owner pretended to figure
on it, and then they fell into a playful scuffle, but all silently.
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