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Back in his room at the boarding-house he examined the additions to his personal property:
Sixty-five dollars in bills.
A platinum ring with three medium diamonds, worth, probably, about seven hundred dollars. Diamonds were going up.
A cheap gold-plated ring with the initials O. S. and the date inside—’03—probably a class-ring from school. Worth a few dollars. Unsalable.
A red-cloth case containing a set of false teeth.
A silver watch.
A gold chain worth more than the watch.
An empty ring-box.
A little ivory Chinese god—probably a desk ornament.
A dollar and sixty-two cents in small change.
He put the money under his pillow and the other things in the toe of an infantry boot, stuffing a stocking in on top of them. Then for two hours his mind raced like a high-power engine here and there through his life, past and future, through fear and laughter. With a vague, inopportune wish that he were married, he fell into a deep sleep about half past five.
VI.
Though the newspaper account of the burglary failed to mention the false teeth, they worried him considerably. The picture of a human waking in the cool dawn and groping for them in vain, of a soft, toothless breakfast, of a strange, hollow, lisping voice calling the police station, of weary, dispirited visits to the dentist, roused a great fatherly pity in him.