less easy to ignore were the plaintive-eyed , rags-for-clothes , beggar children outside his hotel who formed a gauntlet he daily had to run , their outstretched hands grasping and tugging at his shirt-sleeves and their pleading voices falling on him like the lashes of a whip woven from lymph-drenched strips of his own culpability , or at best , his i dont want to know about it apathy .