Once he offered his services to a Conservative statesman; at another time he shot himself in the coat in Northumberland Street, Strand, to oblige an evening paper (five shillings). He fainted in the pit of a theatre to the bribe of an emotional tragedian (a guinea). He assaulted a young lady and her aunt with a view to robbery, in a quiet thoroughfare, by arrangement with a young gentleman, who rescued them and made him run (ten shillings). It got into the papers that he had fled from the wax policeman at Tussaud's (half-a-crown). More than once he sold his body in advance to the doctors, and was never able to buy it out.[2] It would be a labour, thankless as impossible, to recover now all the devices by which Andrew disgraced his manhood during these weeks rather than die. As well count the "drinks" an actor has in a day. It is not our part to climb down into the depths after him. He re-appeared eventually, or this record would never have been written. During this period of gloom, Clarrie wrote him frequently long and tender epistles. More strictly, the minister wrote them, for he had the gift of beautiful sentiment in letters, which had been denied to her. She copied them, however, and signed them, and they were a great consolation. The love of a good girl is a priceless possession, or rather, in this case, of a good minister. So long as you do not know which, it does not make much difference. At times Andrew's reason may have been unhinged, less on account of his reverses than because no one spoke to him. There were days and nights when he rushed all over London. In the principal streets the stolid-faced Scotchman in a straw hat became a familiar figure. Strange fancies held him. He stood for an hour at a time looking at his face in a shop-window. The boot-blacks pointed at him and he disappeared down passages. He shook his fist at the 'bus-conductors, who would not leave him alone. In the yellow night policemen drew back scared, as he hurried past them on his way to nowhere. In the day-time Oxford Street was his favourite thoroughfare. He was very irritable at this time, and could not leave his fellow wayfarers alone. More than once he poked his walking-stick through the eyeglass of a brave young gentleman. He would turn swiftly round to catch people looking at him. When a small boy came in his way, he took him by the neck and planted him on the curb-stone. If a man approached simpering, Andrew stopped and gazed at him. The smile went from the stranger's face; he blushed or looked fierce. When he turned round, Andrew still had his eye on him. Sometimes he came bouncing back. "What are you so confoundedly happy about?" Andrew asked. When he found a crowd gazing in at a "while you wait" shop-window, or entranced over the paving of a street-- "Splendid, isn't it?" he said to the person nearest him.