He was very hungry. Evidently the slice of cocoanut was no
longer effective. He swallowed it and lit a cigarette, one of the
half-dozen still left of the pack he had bought the Tuesday before.
He smoked the cigarette slowly, inhaling as much of the smoke as he
could. This quieted him for an hour, but he had the folly to smoke again
at the end of that time, and at once--as he might have known--was hungry
again. Until dark he struggled along, drinking water continually,
chewing chips of wood, toothpicks, bits of straw, anything so that the
action of his jaws might cheat the demands of his stomach. Toward
half-past seven in the evening he returned to his room in the Reno
House. If he could get to sleep that would be best of all. On the stairs
of the hotel, while going up to his room, the strong smell of cooking
onions came suddenly to his nostrils. It was delicious. Vandover
breathed in the warm savour with long sighs, closing his eyes; a great
feebleness overcame him. He asked himself how he could get through the
next twelve hours.
An hour later he went to bed, hiccoughing from the water he had been
drinking all day.
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