Why lobsters? The whole picture seemed dead and oily. He
turned off the light, and went upstairs, passed his wife's door, into
his own room, and undressed. Clothed in his pyjamas he opened the door
between the rooms. By the light coming from his own he could see her
dark head on the pillow. Was she asleep? No--not asleep, certainly. The
moment of fruition had come; the crowning of his pride and pleasure in
his home. But he continued to stand there. He had suddenly no pride,
no pleasure, no desire; nothing but a sort of dull resentment against
everything. He turned back; shut the door, and slipping between the
heavy curtains and his open window, stood looking out at the night.
'Full of misery!' he thought. 'Full of d---d misery!'
II
Filing into the jury box next morning, Mr. Bosengate collided slightly
with a short juryman, whose square figure and square head of stiff
yellow-red hair he had only vaguely noticed the day before. The man
looked angry, and Mr. Bosengate thought: 'An ill-bred dog, that!'
He sat down quickly, and, to avoid further recognition of his fellows,
gazed in front of him. His appearance on Saturdays was always military,
by reason of the route march of his Volunteer Corps in the afternoon.
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