It was unavailing; he extended his arm towards them, and made another violent effort. There was a rattling noise in the throat⁠—a glare of the eye⁠—a short stifled groan⁠—and he fell back⁠—dead!”

The Stroller’s Tale

“There is nothing of the marvellous in what I am going to relate,” said the dismal man; “there is nothing even uncommon in it. Want and sickness are too common in many stations of life to deserve more notice than is usually bestowed on the most ordinary vicissitudes of human nature. I have thrown these few notes together, because the subject of them was well known to me for many years. I traced his progress downwards, step by step, until at last he reached that excess of destitution from which he never rose again.