The Beetle

By Richard Marsh.

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Book I

The House with the Open Window

The surprising narration of Robert Holt.

I

Outside

“No room!—Full up!”

He banged the door in my face.

That was the final blow.

To have tramped about all day looking for work; to have begged even for a job which would give me money enough to buy a little food; and to have tramped and to have begged in vain—that was bad. But, sick at heart, depressed in mind and in body, exhausted by hunger and fatigue, to have been compelled to pocket any little pride I might have left, and solicit, as the penniless, homeless tramp which indeed I was, a night’s lodging in the casual ward—and to solicit it in vain!—that was worse. Much worse. About as bad as bad could be.

I stared, stupidly, at the door which had just been banged in my face. I could scarcely believe that the thing was possible. I had hardly expected to figure as a tramp; but, supposing it conceivable that I could become a tramp, that I should be refused admission to that abode of all ignominy, the tramp’s ward, was to have attained a depth of misery of which never even in nightmares I had dreamed.

As I stood wondering what I should do, a man slouched towards me out of the shadow of the wall.

“Won’t ’e let yer in?”

“He says it’s full.”

“Says it’s full, does ’e? That’s the lay at Fulham—they always says it’s full. They wants to keep the number down.”

I looked at the man askance. His head hung forward; his hands were in his trouser pockets; his clothes were rags; his tone was husky.

“Do you mean that they say it’s full when it isn’t—that they won’t let me in although there’s room?”

“That’s it—bloke’s a-kiddin’ yer.”

“But, if there’s room, aren’t they bound to let me in?”

“Course they are—and, blimey, if I was you I’d make ’em. Blimey I would!”

He broke into a volley of execrations.

“But what am I to do?”