He was a pale little man, with big teeth and prominent eyes; sitting opposite to him in a bus one would have found it incredible that there could be a woman to love him. As a matter of fact there were two, one dead, not counting a mother whose inarticulate devotion he resented, and a pale sister, also dead.
The only woman of value to him came down every evening to meet the 5.20, and stood very near the edge of the platform with her eyes flickering along the moving carriages. She never knew from which end of the train he would alight, because, as he told her, it was only by the skin of his teeth that he caught it at all, and he often had to jump in at the nearest open door and stand the whole way down among other men's feet, with his hand against the rack to steady himself. He could have come down easily and luxuriously by the 6.5, in the corner of a smoking carriage, but he gave himself this trouble for the sake of three-quarters
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