They could have offered no greater proof than that of the value in which they held it. If a pawnbroker will buy back an article at almost the same price that he sells it, he must indeed be letting you have it cheap. This offering to take back the little brass man at only a shilling less than he was asking for it, was the highest expression of honesty with which he could defend his demands. John accepted the conditions--paid out his seven shillings and bore the little _Chevalier d’honneur_ in brass away. It was three months later, he had only had breakfast for two days--breakfast, which consisted of toast made from a loaf that was ten days old, bloater paste which keeps for ever, and coffee which can--if you know where to get it--be obtained on credit. It was winter-time and the cold had made him hungry. Coals had run out. The last few scrapings of dust had been gathered out of that cupboard on the landing. Then depression set in. Depression is a heartless jade. She always pays you a visit when both stomach and pocket are empty. Putting his face in his hands, John had leant on the mantel-piece. There was nothing to pawn just then. Everything had gone! Suddenly, he became aware that he was gazing at the little brass man, and that the little brass man had got one hand aristocratically upon his hip, whilst the other was holding out something as though secretly to bestow it as a gift. John looked, and looked again. Then he saw what it was. The little brass man was offering him six shillings and a spasm of hunger creaking through him--he had taken it. CHAPTER XIII THE INVENTORY All this had happened more than a year ago, and the sense of shame, accompanying that first confession, had been worn to the dull surface, incapable of reflecting the finer feelings of the mind. Under the very nose of that editor who was considering his last short story, John would have stepped boldly into the suspicious-looking little passage; returning the smile of the girl who sold him stamps in the post-office, he would have entered shamelessly the chapel of unredemption. Such is the reward of the perpetual sin of poverty. It brings with it the soothing narcotic of callousness, of indifference--and that perhaps is the saddest sin of all. The watch-chain went that morning with the ease of a transaction constantly performed. There was no need to haggle over the price this time. The same price had been paid many times before. It came last but one on the list of things to be pawned. Last of all was the little brass man--the last to be pledged, the first to be redeemed. There is always an order in these things and it never varies. When pledging, you go from top to bottom of the list; when redeeming, it is just the reverse. And the order itself depends entirely upon that degree of sentiment with which each object is regarded.