The orange had been stepped on several times, had been exposed to the sun, and was covered with grime. Whereupon the banker, still sitting on the curb, hung his head and blubbered like a child. Hunger is terrible. Hunger bends people. Hunger finds people behaving in ways they otherwise never would.
Hunger forces people to be what they never thought they'd become.
The British banker would have given everything he owned, even his civil service pension, for one slice of bread. But there was no bread. Bread was the all-important commodity in the ancient east. Hosea paid part of the purchase-price in grain. Today there are few public officials more important than the minister of finance and the president of the central bank.