It was already past noon.  Why was I wandering alone in this city
of the dead?  Why was I alone when all London was lying in state, and
in its black shroud?  I felt intolerably lonely.  My mind ran on old
friends that I had forgotten for years.  I thought of the poisons in
the chemists' shops, of the liquors the wine merchants stored; I
recalled the two sodden creatures of despair, who so far as I knew,
shared the city with myself. . . .