IV MYSTERY 211 



Funny chap; but he's amusing when you gets 

 'en into conversation. Nobody knows where he 

 come'd from; nobody knows what he's here for — 

 not to do hisself any good, that's a sure thing; — 

 an' I be blow'd if anybody knows how he'll manage 

 when his time comes to pack up. He's a ****** 

 mystery, Beautiful Onionhead is!' 



A mystery, where most men are acquainted 

 with each other's lives from babyhood, his tall, 

 limp figure slouches about amongst us, his comings 

 and goings hardly an object of curiosity. When he 

 cannot raise the price of a bed at the common 

 lodging-house, he takes his rest standing against 

 a lee wall with his hands in his pockets and his 

 shoulders bent round forward, waiting — waiting, 

 it seems, for nothing at all, not even for the hours 

 to pass. His clothes have the additional soaked 

 seediness of sleeping rough. His chin remains 

 always in that state when It neither has, nor has 

 not, a beard. The eyes of men like him, who 

 snatch a living when and where they can, have 

 often the fixed wlldish look that one sees in 

 predatory animals. Beautiful Ohionhead's eyes 

 have it; all the more because an Insufficiency of 

 food, as it will do, has made the rims of them red. 

 Being a man who keeps himself to himself, and 



