noon
was the staggering question that met Richard at the threshold . He went from workshop to workshop , confidently and cheerfully at first , whistling softly between whiles ; but at every turn the question confronted him . In some places , where he was recognized with thinly veiled surprise as that boy of Shackford 's , he was kindly put off ; in others he received only a stare or a brutal No . By noon he had exhausted the leading shops and offices in the village , and was so disheartened that he began to dread the thought of returning home to dinner . Clearly , he was a superfluous person in Stillwater . A mortar-splashed hod-carrier , who had seated himself on a pile of brick and was eating his noonday rations from a tin can just brought to him by a slatternly girl , gave Richard a spasm of envy . Here was a man who had found his place , and was establishing -- what Richard did not seem able to establish in his own case -- a right to exist .