North-easter to wither us, blood, bone, and soul.

He was hungry; he waxed furious with the woman who had flung him out upon
the roads. He was thirsty as well. The brightest something to refresh
his thoughts grew and glowed in the form of a shiny table, bearing tasty
dishes, old wines; at an inn or anywhere. But, out of London, an English
inn to furnish the dishes and the wines for a civilized and self-
respecting man is hard to seek, as difficult to find as a perfect
skeleton of an extinct species. The earl's breast howled derision of
his pursuit when he drew up at the; sign of the Royal Sovereign, in the
dusky hour, and handed himself desperately to Mrs. Rundles' mercy.

He could not wait for a dinner, so his eating was cold meat. Warned by a
sip, that his drinking, if he drank, was to be an excursion in chemical
acids, the virtues of an abstainer served for his consolation. Tolerant
of tobacco, although he did not smoke, he fronted the fire, envying Gower
Woodseer the contemplative pipe, which for half a dozen puffs wafted him
to bracing deserts, or primaeval forests, or old highways with the
swallow thoughts above him, down the Past, into the Future. A pipe is
pleasant dreams at command. A pipe is the concrete form of philosophy.
Why, then, a pipe is the alternative of a friar's frock for an escape
from women. But if one does not smoke! . . . Here and there a man is
visibly in the eyes of all men cursed: let him be blest by Fortune; let
him be handsome, healthy, wealthy, courted, he is cursed.

Fleetwood lay that night beneath the roof of the Royal Sovereign. Sleep
is life's legitimate mate. It will treat us at times as the faithless
wife, who becomes a harrying beast, behaves to her lord. He had no
sleep. Having put out his candle, an idea took hold of him, and he
jumped up to light it again and verify the idea that this room . . .