E Phillips Oppenheim

A People's Man E Phillips Oppenheim

"Maraton has come! Maraton! Maraton is here!"Across Soho, threading his way with devilish ingenuity through mazes of narrow streets, scattering with his hooter little groups of gibbering, swarthy foreigners, Aaron Thurnbrein, bent double over his ancient bicycle, sped on his way towards the Commercial Road andeastwards. With narrow cheeks smeared with dust, yellow teeth showing behind his partedlips, through which the muttered words came with uneven vehemence, ragged clothes, aragged handkerchief around his neck, a greasy cap upon his head-this messenger, chargedwith great tidings, proclaimed himself, by his visible existence, one of the submergedclinging to his last spar, fighting still with hands which beat the air, yet carrying theundaunted light of battle in his blazing eyes, deep-sunken, almost cavernous, the lastrefuge, perhaps, of that ebbing life. Drops of perspiration were upon his forehead, hisbreath came hard and painfully. Before he had reached his destination, one could almosthear the rattle in his throat. He even staggered as at last he dropped from his bicycle and, wheeling it across a broad pavement, left it reclining against a box of apples exposed infront of a small greengrocer's shop. The neighbourhood was ugly and dirty, the shop was ugly and dirty. The interior intowhich he passed was dark, odoriferous, bare of stock, poverty-smitten. A woman, lean, hard-featured, with thin grey hair disordered and unkempt, looked up quickly at hiscoming and as quickly down again. Her face was perhaps too lifeless to express anyemotion whatsoever, but there might have been a shade of disappointment in the swiftwithdrawal of her gaze. A customer would have been next door to a miracle, but hope diesh