Forty or fifty people were waiting. One handed one’s pledge over the counter and sat down. Presently, when the clerk had assessed its value, he would call out, ‘Numéro such and such, will you take fifty francs?’ Sometimes it was only fifteen francs, or ten, or five–whatever it was, the whole room knew it. As I came in the clerk called with an air of offence, ‘Numéro 83–here!’ and gave a little whistle and a beckon, as though calling a dog. Numéro 83 stepped to the counter; he was an old bearded man, with an overcoat buttoned up at the neck and frayed trouser-ends. Without a word the clerk shot the bundle across the counter–evidently it was worth nothing. It fell to the ground and came open, displaying four pairs of men’s woollen pants. No one could help laughing. Poor Numéro 83 gathered up his pants and shambled out, muttering to himself.

The clothes I was pawning, together with the suitcase, had cost over twenty pounds, and were in good condition. I thought they must be worth ten pounds, and a quarter of this (one expects quarter value at a pawnshop) was two hundred and fifty or three hundred francs. I waited without anxiety, expecting two hundred francs at the worst.

At last the clerk called my number: ‘Numéro 97!’

‘Yes,’ I said, standing up.

‘Seventy francs?’

Seventy francs for ten pounds’ worth of clothes! But it was no use arguing; I had seen someone else attempt to argue, and the clerk had instantly refused the pledge. I took the money and the pawnticket and walked out. I had now no clothes except what I stood up in–the coat badly out at elbow–an overcoat, moderately pawnable, and one spare shirt. Afterwards, when it was too late, I learned that it is wiser to go to a pawnshop in the afternoon. The clerks are French, and, like most French people, are in a bad temper till they have eaten their lunch.

When I got home, Madame F. was sweeping the bistro floor. She came up the steps to meet me. I could see in her eye that she was uneasy about my rent.

‘Well,’ she said, ‘what did you get for your clothes? Not much, eh?’

‘Two hundred francs,’ I said promptly.

‘Tiens!’ she said, surprised; ‘well, that’s not bad. How expensive those English clothes must be!’

The lie saved a lot of trouble, and, strangely enough, it came true. A few days later I did receive exactly two hundred francs due to me for a newspaper article, and, though it hurt to do it, I at once paid every penny of it in rent. So, though I came near to starving in the following weeks, I was hardly ever without a roof.

It was now absolutely necessary to find work, and I remembered a friend of mine, a Russian waiter named Boris, who might be able to help me. I had first met him in the public ward of a hospital, where he was being treated for arthritis in the left leg. He had told me to come to him if I were ever in difficulties.

I must say something about Boris, for he was a curious character and my close friend for a long time. He was a big, soldierly man of about thirty-five, and had been good-looking, but since his illness he had grown immensely fat from lying in bed. Like most Russian refugees, he had had an adventurous life. His parents, killed in the Revolution, had been rich people, and he had served through the war in the Second Siberian Rifles, which, according to him, was the best regiment in the Russian Army. After the war he had first worked in a brush factory, then as a porter at Les Halles, then had become a dishwasher, and had finally worked his way up to be a waiter. When he fell ill he was at the Hôtel Scribe, and taking a hundred francs a day in tips. His ambition was to become a maître d’hôtel, save fifty thousand francs, and set up a small, select restaurant on the Right Bank.

Boris always talked of the war as the happiest time of his life. War and soldiering were his passion; he had read innumerable books of strategy and military history, and could tell you all about the theories of Napoleon, Kutuzof, Clausewitz, Moltke and Foch.