<1> With the last morsel of bread Tom King wiped his plate clean of the last particle of flour gravy and chewed the resulting mouthful in a slow and meditative way. When he arose from the table, he was oppressed by the feeling that he was distinctly hungry. Yet he alone had eaten. The two children in the other room had been sent early to bed in order that in sleep they might forget they had gone supperless. His wife had touched nothing, and had sat silently and watched him with solicitous eyes. She was a thin, worn woman of the working-class, though signs of an earlier prettiness were not wanting in her face. The flour for the gravy she had borrowed from the neighbor across the hall. The last two ha’pennies had gone to buy the bread.

He sat down by the window on a rickety chair that protested under his weight, and quite mechanically he put his pipe in his mouth and dipped into the side pocket of his coat. The absence of any tobacco made him aware of his action, and, with a scowl for his forgetfulness, he put the pipe away. His movements were slow, almost hulking, as though he were burdened by the heavy weight of his muscles. He was a solid-bodied, stolid-looking man, and his appearance did not suffer from being overprepossessing. His rough clothes were old and slouchy. The uppers of his shoes were too weak to carry the heavy resoling that was itself of no recent date. And his cotton shirt, a cheap, two-shilling affair, showed a frayed collar and ineradicable paint stains.

But it was Tom King’s face that advertised him unmistakably for what he was. It was the face of a typical prize-fighter; of one who had put in long years of service in the squared ring and, by that means, developed and emphasized all the marks of the fighting beast. It was distinctly a lowering countenance, and, that no feature of it might escape notice, it was clean-shaven. The lips were shapeless, and constituted a mouth harsh to excess, that was like a gash in his face. The jaw was aggressive, brutal, heavy. The eyes, slow of movement and heavy-lidded, were almost expressionless under the shaggy, indrawn brows. Sheer animal that he was, the eyes were the most animal-like feature about him. They were sleepy, lion-like - the eyes of a fighting animal. The forehead slanted quickly back to the hair, which, clipped close, showed every bump of a villainous-looking head. A nose, twice broken and moulded variously by countless blows, and a cauliflower ear, permanently swollen and distorted to twice its size, completed his adornment, while the beard, fresh-shaven as it was, sprouted in the skin and gave the face a blue-black stain.

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这是最后一小块面包了。汤姆·金用它蘸完了最后一点面酱,把盘子抹得干干净净了的,放进口中若有所思地细嚼慢咽着。从桌边站起身的时候,他明显地感觉到饥饿并未消除。吃上这顿饭的,只有他一个人。两个孩子在隔壁房间里被早早地送上了床,因为拿不出晚饭给他们吃。妻子也没有任何东西可吃。她一声不响地坐在那儿,关切地望着丈夫。这是个出身于劳动人民阶层的女人。身体单薄瘦弱,在她的脸上,还残存着年轻时美貌的痕迹。她用最后的两个便士买了面包,所以只好从邻居家借了点面粉给丈夫做面酱。

汤姆·金在窗旁坐下,那把东倒西歪的破椅子吱吱响着。他机械地拿起烟斗,放进嘴里，然后一只手伸进口袋里,却没有找到烟丝。他明明知道口袋是空的,烟丝已没有了,却总记不住。他生气地把烟斗放在一旁,动作缓慢,差不多有些笨拙,庞大的身体, 笨重的肌肉使他有点萎靡不振。他是个身强力壮的家伙,长相也应当说是很有吸引力的。不过他的衣服又破有旧,脚上的鞋子因为穿得太久,鞋底都快要磨穿了。身上的衬衫是两个先令一件的便宜货,领口已经烂了,油污也无法洗掉。

只要看一眼汤姆·金的脸,你就准能猜到他是干什么的。这是一张典型的拳击手的脸,上面有着多年格斗于拳击场中留下的创伤和岁月本身的痕迹。尽管这张脸刮得干干净净的,它还是呈现出一副咄咄逼人的容貌。严重变形的嘴巴,仿佛是脸上裂开的一道伤口。下骸粗大,前突。浓眉下的眼睛,深深地陷在沉重的眼皮之中,目光呆滞,毫无表情。

在汤姆·金身上你能看到一种动物的东西,尤其是他的两只眼睛,像是没睡醒的狮子的眼睛, 又像是准备一跃而起的野兽的眼睛。他的头发理得很短,前额向后倾,丑陋的脑袋上看得清每一个疙瘩。鼻子由于无数次的打击不断地改变着形状,有两次打断了鼻梁。两只耳朵,常常弄伤,永远肿着，比正常人的耳朵大出一倍.刚刮过的脸呈现出青黑色,说明他的胡子,毛发很重。