One minor incident, however, which struck me as significant and jolted me out of my irritability, remained fixed even now in my memory. It was the winter of 1917. a north wind was blustering, but the urgency of earning my living forced me to be up and out early. I met scarcely a soul on the road, but eventually managed to hire a rickshaw to take me to Gate S. Soon the wind dropped a little, having blown away the drifts of dust on the road to leave a clean broad way ahead, and the rickshaw man quickened his pace. We were just approaching Gate S when we knocked into someone who slowly toppled over.