Clad in yellow oilskins, and with a bulbous black helmet lodged on his grapefruit-sized head, he looked like a pencil I'd once owned. This skinnymalink was riding an equally emaciated-looking motorbike; […]

Not even I knew that.

Few, save the poor, feel for the poor: The rich know not, how hard It is to be of needful food And needful rest debarred. Their paths are paths of plenteousness, They sleep on silk and down; And never think how heavily The weary head lies down.

a wisecracking narrator