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No more dreams! He walked right in.
    “You have a cigarette-case in the window marked three pounds ten shillings,” he said.
    “Yes, sir?”
    “Look: I’ve got one exactly like that, but a good deal heavier, at home. If I wanted to sell it, how much would you give me for it?”
    “Oh, well,” said the pawnbroker. “I mean to say … how could I say without seeing it?”
    “Listen: say it was just like the one you’ve got in the window, and in perfect condition, and I wanted to sell it—not pawn it, sell it—could you give me an idea of what you’d give for it?”
    “Hard to say without seeing the case. Could be worth thirty shillings or a couple of quid. Depends on the weight and quality of the article, doesn’t it?”
    “I suppose so. But say my case——”
    “You bring it along,” said the pawnbroker. Then his face changed and his body swelled. He began to quiver. “ Circum stances alter cases, ”he said, bursting into a long laugh.
    “I want to get this right, you see,” said Pym. “You’d give up to two pounds for a cigarette-case exactly like that bevelled-edge one in the window?”
    “It depends, you see. Circumstances alter cigarette-cases.— Hwa-hwa-hwa-hwa-hwooo! ” The pawnbroker controlled himself. “A good modern bevel-edge case like the one in the window, in perfect condition, I’d pay up to a couple of pounds for. But circumstances——”
    “I’ll bring mine along.”
    “Yes, you do that.”
    Ignoring the ache in his legs and the heavy emptiness of hisstomach, Pym walked to Islington and redeemed his cigarette-case from Messrs. McCormick Ltd. He paused only to visit a public lavatory, where he filled one of his pockets with thin paper. He had a little more than six shillings now. His head was rattling like a stale walnut, and in his throat there was something like a hangman’s knot.
    “Well?” he said to the pawnbroker near the Hampstead Road.
    “It’s a nice case all right. But I mean to say—look.”
    “What d’you mean—‘look’? What’s the matter with it? Look at what? Why look, in that tone of voice?”
    “Well, look—J. P.”
    “What’s the matter with J . P. ? That’s my initials.”
    “I daresay. Well, there you are. That’s just it.”
    “That’s just what?”
    “Well, who wants a case with somebody else’s initials?”
    “You said——”
    “I said nothing about initials. You were talking about a case in perfect condition. You never mentioned initials.”
    Licking dry lips with a glutinous tongue, Pym said: “They can be taken off.”
    “Spoil the case,” said the pawnbroker.
    Pym swallowed air. “How much for it?” he said.
    “You want to sell it, do you?”
    “Those initials aren’t cut deep—they’re only sort of scratched on.”
    “I could let you have a pound.”
    “I want two pounds.”
    “Well, I daresay you can get it elsewhere. Not me, sir.”
    Pym struck out SOS in Morse code with a knuckle on the glass counter. “Thirty shillings,” he said.
    “I’ll make it twenty-two-and-six. Twenty-two shillings and sixpence is my last word.”
    “Oh, all right, all right—give me twenty-two-and-six.”
    “It would have been worth a couple of pounds if it wasn’t for the initials,” said the pawnbroker, counting out the money.
    “One of these days those initials will be worth more than the case,” said Pym, through his teeth.
    “But at the present moment——”
    Pym began to say something, thought better of it, and left the shop. Now he had twenty-eight shillings and sixpence in his fob-pocket , and some copper coins in the right-hand pocket of his trousers.

CHAPTER THREE
    D ETERMINED , now, to see the end of the matter, Pym went to another pawnshop and redeemed his summer suit and winter overcoat. He had not known that the old leather suitcase was so heavy. After twenty paces the strength ran out of his right arm, so that he had to stop. A rough seam in the handle cut a groove in his left hand. He changed hands