lean build.
Shift his posture or his weight as he might, after a few seconds'
ease his haunch-pins were pressing again upon the pavement, with no
cushion of flesh but a crushed nerve or two that kept telephoning
misery to his knee and fetching fierce darts of pain for response.
A quick succession of these, running into one as though a red-hot
iron had been applied under the thigh, searing it to the very bone,
stabbed suddenly into his brain with a new terror. He had forgotten
the anonymous letter and its threat!

He was a rich man now. The business of a rich man was to stay at
home and preserve his riches while making use of them-like
Pamphlett. Who in this world ever heard of a rich man being hauled
off to serve in the Navy as a common seaman? The thing was
unprecedented. He could buy himself out; at the worst by paying up
the money he had drawn.

Yes, but this would involve disclosing his wealth, and the source of
it. . . . He was terribly afraid of publicity. He had enemies, as
the letter proved: he suspected that the law itself might be another
enemy--you could never predict which side the law would take--and
between them, if they got to know his secret, they would despoil him.
. . . On the other hand if, covering his secret, he opposed but a
passive resistance, they might carry him off to jail, and then all
this money would be laid bare to the world. Intolerable exposure!

He must hide it. . . . He must count it, and then--having staved off
Pamphlett--hide it tomorrow with all speed and cunning. When would
the dawn come?

The sun, in the longitude of Polpier, was actually due to rise a few
minutes before five o'clock. But Polpier (as I have told) lies in a
deep cleft of the hills. Nicky-Nan's parlour looked out on a mere
slit at the bottom of that cleft; and, moreover, the downfall of
plaster blocked half the lower portion of its tiny dirty window.

What with one hindrance and another, it was almost a quarter past
five before daylight began to glimmer in the parlour. It found him
on his knees--not in prayer, nor in thanksgiving, but eagerly feeling
over the grey pile of rubbish and digging into it with clawed
fingers.

An hour later, with so much of daylight about him as the window
permitted, he was still on his knees. Already he had collected more
than a hundred golden coins, putting them together in piles of
twenty.

The dawn had been chilly: but he was warm enough by this time.
Indeed, sw