Nineteen Impressions/The Ashes of Last Night’s Fire

THE ASHES OF LAST NIGHT'S FIRESOME association that he did not recognise at the moment, wonderfully stimulated and moved him. His thought flowing without resistance or distraction was less an effect of memory than of vision. Every nerve in his body was alive again.
••••••
He went home by 'bus and the cable tram. His pale face was still faintly pink from the hot blush of pleasure that had suffused it when the partners had made their announcement. He pitied the other passengers, the men fixed in their common routine. The usual evening papers, the usual pipes and cigarettes, the usual craning over the side as they passed the Oval, the usual remarks on the weather. … None of them had achieved his success. And he was only twenty-eight. His whole body seemed to ring with exultation.
The glow mounted steadily. When he was home in his shabby lodgings he had hardly patience to eat his common, unappetising meal. He had always been careful, but he could leave these rooms now, at once. He would give his landlady a fortnight's notice and find something better when he came back from his holiday.
He got up and paced the mean length of the dingy room. He had done it all in nine years—lifted him

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