and fishtails littered on the floor, and a pile of plates,


stuck together in their grease, waiting from overnight. I


could not start on the plates yet, because the water was


cold, and I had to fetch milk and make coffee, for the


others arrived at eight and expected to find coffee ready.


Also, there were always several copper saucepans to


clean. Those copper saucepans are the bane of a



plongeur's


life. They have to be scoured with sand and


bunches of chain, ten minutes to each one, and then


polished on the outside with Brasso. Fortunately, the art


of making them has been lost and they are gradually


vanishing from French kitchens, though one can still


buy them second-hand.



When I had begun on the plates the cook would take


me away from the plates to begin skinning onions, and


when I had begun on the onions the



patron would arrive


and send me out to buy cabbages. When I came back


with the cabbages the



patron's wife would tell me to go to


some shop half a mile away and buy a pot of rouge; by


the time I came back there would be more vegetables


waiting, and the plates were still not done. In this way


our incompetence piled one job on another throughout


the day, everything in arrears.



Till ten, things went comparatively easily, though we


were working fast, and no one lost his temper. The cook


would find time to talk about her artistic nature, and say


did I not think Tolstoi was



épatant, and sing in a fine


soprano voice as she minced beef on the board. But at


ten the waiters began clamouring for their lunch, which


they had early, and at eleven the first customers would


be arriving. Suddenly everything became hurry and bad


temper. There was not the same furious rushing and


yelling as at the Hôtel X., but an atmosphere of


muddle, petty spite and exasperation. Discomfort was at


the bottom of it. It was unbearably cramped in the


kitchen, and dishes had to be put on the floor, and one


had to be thinking constantly about not stepping on


them. The cook's vast buttocks banged against me as she


moved to and fro. A ceaseless, nagging chorus of orders


streamed from her:



"Unspeakable idiot! How many times have I told you


not to bleed the beetroots? Quick, let me get to the sink!


Put those knives away; get on with the potatoes. What


have you done with my strainer? Oh, leave those


potatoes alone. Didn't I tell you to skim the



bouillon? Take


that can of water off the stove. Never mind the washing


up, chop this celery. No, not like that, you fool, like this.


There! Look at you letting those peas boil over! Now get


to work and scale these herrings. Look, do you call this


plate clean? Wipe it on your apron. Put that salad on the


floor. That's right, put it where I'm bound to step in it!


Look out, that pot's boiling over! Get me down that


saucepan. No, the other one. Put this on the grill. Throw


those potatoes away. Don't waste time, throw them on


the floor. Tread them in.' Now throw down some sawdust;


this floor's like a skating-rink. Look, you fool, that


steak's burning!



Mon Dieu, why did they send me an idiot


for a



plongeur? Who are you talking to? Do you realise that


my aunt was a Russian countess?" etc. etc. etc.



This went on till three o'clock without much variation,


except that about eleven the cook usually had a



crise de



nerfs


and a flood of tears. From three to five was a fairly


slack time for the waiters, but the cook was still busy,


and I was working my fastest, for there was a pile of dirty


plates waiting, and it was a race to get them done, or


partly done, before dinner began. The washing up was


doubled by the primitive conditions-


a cramped draining-board, tepid water, sodden cloths,


and a sink that got blocked once in an hour. By five the


cook and I were feeling unsteady on our feet, not having


eaten or sat down since seven. We used to collapse, she


on the dustbin and I on the floor, drink a bottle of beer,


and apologise for some of the things we had said in the


morning. Tea was what kept us going. We took care to


have a pot always stewing, and drank pints during the


day.



At half-past five the hurry and quarrelling began


again, and now worse than before, because everyone was


tired out. The cook had a



crise de nerfs at six and another


at nine; they came on so regularly that one could have


told the time by them. She would flop down on the


dustbin, begin weeping hysterically, and cry out that


never, no, never had she thought to come to such a life as


this; her nerves would not stand it; she had studied


music at Vienna; she had a bedridden husband to


support, etc. etc. At another time one would have been


sorry for her, but, tired as we all were, her whimpering


voice merely infuriated us. Jules used. to stand in the


doorway and mimic her weeping. The



patron's wife nagged,


and Boris and Jules quarrelled all day, because Jules


shirked his work, and Boris, as head waiter, claimed the


larger share of the tips. Only the second day after the


restaurant opened, they came to blows in the kitchen over


a two-franc tip, and the cook and I had to separate them.


The only person who never forgot his manners was the



patron


. He kept the same hours as the rest of us, but he


had no work to do, for it was his wife who really managed


things. His sole job, besides ordering the supplies, was to


stand in the bar smoking cigarettes and looking


gentlemanly, and he did that to perfection.



The cook and I generally found time to eat our


dinner between ten and eleven o'clock. At midnight the


cook would steal a packet of food for her husband, stow


it under her clothes, and make off, whimpering that


these hours would kill her and she would give notice in


the morning. Jules also left at midnight, usually after a


dispute with Boris, who had to look after the bar till two.


Between twelve and half-past I did what I could to finish


the washing up. There was no time to attempt doing the


work properly, and I used simply to rub the grease off


the plates with tablenapkins. As for the dirt on the floor,


I let it lie, or swept the worst of it out of sight under the


stoves.



At half-past twelve I would put on my coat and hurry


out. The



patron, bland as ever, would stop me as I went


down the alley-way past the bar. «



Mais, mon cher



monsieur


, how tired you look! Please do me the favour of


accepting this glass of brandy."



He would hand me the glass of brandy as courteously


as though I had been a Russian duke instead of a


plongeur. He treated all of us like this. It was our com-


pensation for working seventeen hours a day.



As a rule the last Metro was almost empty-a great


advantage, for one could sit down and sleep for a


quarter of an hour. Generally I was in bed by halfpast


one. Sometimes I missed the train and had to sleep on


the floor of the restaurant, but it hardly mattered, for I


could have slept on cobblestones at that time.




XXI



THIS life went on for about a fortnight, with a slight


increase of work as more customers came to the restaur-


ant. I could have saved an hour a day by taking a


room near the restaurant, but it seemed impossible to


find time to change lodgings-or, for that matter, to get


my hair cut, look at a newspaper, or even undress


completely. After ten days I managed to find a free


quarter of an hour, and wrote to my friend B. in London


asking him if he could get me a job of some sort-


anything, so long as it allowed more than five hours


sleep. I was simply not equal to going on with a


seventeen-hour day, though there are plenty of people


who think nothing of it. When one is overworked, it is a


good cure for self-pity to think of the thousands of


people in Paris restaurants who work such hours, and


will go on doing it, not for a few weeks, but for years.


There was a girl in a



bistro near my hotel who worked


from seven in the morning till midnight for a whole year,


only sitting down to her meals. I remember once asking


her to come to a dance, and she laughed and said that


she had not been further than the street corner for


several months. She was consumptive, and died about


the time I left Paris.



After only a week we were all neurasthenic with


fatigue, except Jules, who skulked persistently. The


quarrels, intermittent at first, had now become con-


tinuous. For hours one would keep up a drizzle of


useless nagging, rising into storms of abuse every few


minutes. "Get me down that saucepan, idiot!' the cook


would cry (she was not tall enough to reach the shelves


where the saucepans were kept). "Get it down yourself,


you old whore," I would answer. Such remarks seemed to


be generated spontaneously from the air of the kitchen.



We quarrelled over things of inconceivable pettiness.


The dustbin, for instance, was an unending source of


quarrels-whether it should be put where I wanted it,


which was in the cook's way, or where she wanted it,


which was between me and the sink. Once she nagged


and nagged until at last, in pure spite, I lifted the


dustbin up and put it out in the middle of the floor,


where she was bound to trip over it.



"Now, you cow," I said, "move it yourself."



Poor old woman, it was too heavy for her to lift, and


she sat down, put her head on the table and burst out


crying. And I jeered at her. This is the kind of effect that


fatigue has upon one's manners.



After a few days the cook had ceased talking about


Tolstoi and her artistic nature, and she and I were not


on speaking terms, except for the purposes of work, and


Boris and Jules were not on speaking terms, and neither


of them was on speaking terms with the cook. Even


Boris and I were barely on speaking terms. We had


agreed beforehand that the



engueulades of working hours


did not count between times; but we had called each


other things too bad to be forgotten-and besides, there


were no between times. Jules grew lazier and lazier, and


he stole food constantly-from a sense of duty, he said.


He called the rest of us



jaune-blackleg-when we would


not join with him in stealing. He had a curious,


malignant spirit. He told me, as a matter of pride, that


he had sometimes wrung a dirty dishcloth into a


customer's soup before taking it in, just to be revenged


upon a member of the bourgeoisie.



The kitchen grew dirtier and the rats bolder, though


we trapped a few of them. Looking round that filthy


room, with raw meat lying among refuse on the floor,


and cold, clotted saucepans sprawling everywhere, and


the sink blocked and coated with grease, I used to


wonder whether there could be a restaurant in the world


as bad as ours. But the other three all said that they


had been in dirtier places. Jules took a positive pleasure


in seeings things dirty. In the afternoon, when 8



he had not much to do, he used to stand in the kitchen


doorway jeering at us for working too hard:



"Fool! Why do you wash that plate? Wipe it on your


trousers. Who cares about the customers?



They don't


know what's going on. What is restaurant work? You


are carving a chicken and it falls on the floor. You


apologise, you bow, you go out; and in five minutes you


come back by another door-with the same chicken. That


is restaurant work," etc.



And, strange to say, in spite of all this filth and in-


competence, the Auberge de Jehan Cottard was actually


a success. For the first few days all our customers were


Russians, friends of the



patron, and these were followed


by Americans and other foreigners-no Frenchmen.


Then one night there was tremendous excitement,


because our first Frenchman had arrived. For a moment


our quarrels were forgotten and we all united in the


effort to serve a good dinner. Boris tiptoed into the


kitchen, jerked his thumb over his shoulder and


whispered conspiratorially:



"



Sh! Attention, un Français! »



A moment later the patron's wife came and


whispered:



"



Attention, un Français! See that he gets a double


portion of all vegetables."



While the Frenchman ate, the



patron's wife stood


behind the grille of the kitchen door and watched the


expression of his face. Next night the Frenchman came


back with two other Frenchmen. This meant that we


were earning a good name; the surest sign of a bad


restaurant is to be frequented only by foreigners. Pro-


bably part of the reason for our success was that the


patron, with the sole gleam of sense he had shown in


fitting out the restaurant, had bought very sharp table-


knives. Sharp knives, of course, are the secret of a


successful restaurant. I am glad that this happened, for


it destroyed one of my illusions, namely, the idea that


Frenchmen know good food when they see it. Or


perhaps we were a fairly good restaurant by Paris


standards; in which case the bad ones must be past


imagining.



In a very few days after I had written to B. he replied


to say that there was a job he could get for me. It was to


look after a congenital imbecile, which sounded a


splendid rest cure after the Auberge de Jehan Cottard. I


pictured myself loafing in the country lanes, knocking


thistle-heads off with my stick, feeding on roast lamb and


treacle tart, and sleeping ten hours a night in sheets


smelling of lavender. B. sent me a fiver to pay my


passage and get my clothes out of the pawn, and as soon


as the money arrived I gave one day's notice and left the


restaurant. My leaving so suddenly embarrassed the



patron,


for as usual he was penniless, and he had to pay


my wages thirty francs short. However he stood me a


glass of Courvoisier '48 brandy, and I think he felt that


this made up the difference. They engaged a Czech, a


thoroughly competent



plongeur, in my place, and the poor


old cook was sacked a few weeks later. Afterwards I


heard that, with two first-rate people in the kitchen, the



plongeur's


work had been cut down to fifteen hours a day.


Below that no one could have cut it, short of


modernising the kitchen.




XXII



FOR what they are worth I want to give my opinions


about the life of a Paris



plongeur. When one comes to


think of it, it is strange that thousands of people in a


great modern city should spend their waking hours


swabbing dishes in hot dens underground. The


question I am raising is why this life goes on-what


purpose it serves, and who wants it to continue, and why.


I am not taking the merely rebellious,



fainéant attitude. I


am trying to consider the social significance of a



plongeur's


life.



I think one should start by saying that a



plongeur is


one of the slaves of the modern world. Not that there is


any need to whine over him, for he is better off than


many manual workers, but still, he is no freer than if he


were bought and sold. His work is servile and without


art; he is paid just enough to keep him alive; his only


holiday is the sack. He is cut off from marriage, or, if he


marries, his wife must work too. Except by a lucky


chance, he has no escape from this life, save into prison.


At this moment there are men with university degrees


scrubbing dishes in Paris for ten or fifteen hours a day.


One cannot say that it is mere idleness on their part, for


an idle man cannot be a



plongeur; they have simply been


trapped by a routine which makes thought impossible. If



plongeurs


thought at all, they would long ago have formed


a union and gone on strike for better treatment. But


they do not think, because they have no leisure for it;


their life has made slaves of them.



The question is, why does this slavery continue?


People have a way of taking it for granted that all work


is done for a sound purpose. They see somebody else


doing a disagreeable job, and think that they have


solved things by saying that the job is necessary. Coal-


mining, for example, is hard work, but it is necessary-we


must have coal. Working in the sewers is unpleasant,


but somebody must work in the sewers. And similarly


with a



plongeur's work. Some people must feed in


restaurants, and so other people must swab dishes for


eighty hours a week. It is the work of civilisation,


therefore unquestionable. This point is worth


considering.



Is a



plongeur's work really necessary to civilisation?


We have a feeling that it must be "honest" work,


because it is hard and disagreeable, and we have made


a sort of fetish of manual work. We see a man cutting


down a tree, and we make sure that he is filling a social


need, just because he uses his muscles; it does not


occur to us that he may only be cutting down a


beautiful tree to make room for a hideous statue. I


believe it is the same with a



plongeur. He earns his bread


in the sweat of his brow, but it does not follow that he is


doing anything useful; he may be only supplying a


luxury which, very often, is not a luxury.



As an example of what I mean by luxuries which are


not luxuries, take an extreme case, such as one hardly


sees in Europe. Take an Indian rickshaw puller, or a


gharry pony. In any Far Eastern town there are


rickshaw pullers by the hundred, black wretches


weighing eight stone, clad in loin-cloths. Some of them


are diseased; some of them are fifty years old. For miles


on end they trot in the sun or rain, head down, dragging


at the shafts, with the sweat dripping from their grey


moustaches. When they go too slowly the passenger


calls them



bahinchut. They earn thirty or forty rupees a


month, and cough their lungs out after a few years. The


gharry ponies are gaunt, vicious things that have been


sold cheap as having a few years' work left in them.


Their master looks on the whip as a substitute for food.


Their work expresses itself in a sort of equation-whip


plus food equals energy; generally it is about sixty per


cent. whip and forty per cent. food. Sometimes their


necks are encircled by one vast sore, so that they drag


all day on raw flesh. It is still possible to make them


work, however; it is just a question of thrashing them so


hard that the pain behind outweighs the pain in front.


After a few years even the whip loses its virtue, and the


pony goes to the knacker. These are instances of un-


necessary work, for there is no real need for gharries


and rickshaws; they only exist because Orientals con-


sider it vulgar to walk. They are luxuries, and, as any-


one who has ridden in them knows, very poor luxuries.


They afford a small amount of convenience, which


cannot possibly balance the suffering of the men and


animals.



Similarly with the



plongeur. He is a king compared


with a rickshaw puller or a gharry pony, but his case is


analogous. He is the slave of a hotel or a restaurant,


and his slavery is more or less useless. For, after all,


where is the real need of big hotels and smart


restaurants? They are supposed to provide luxury, but


in reality they provide only a cheap, shoddy imitation of


it. Nearly everyone hates hotels. Some restaurants are


better than others, but it is impossible to get as good a


meal in a restaurant as one can get, for the same ex-


pense, in a private house. No doubt hotels and restau-


rants must exist, but there is no need that they should


enslave hundreds of people. What makes the work in


them is not the essentials; it is the shams that are sup-


posed to represent luxury. Smartness, as it is called,


means, in effect, merely that the staff work more and


the customers pay more; no one benefits except the


proprietor, who will presently buy himself a striped villa


at Deauville. Essentially, a "smart" hotel is a place


where a hundred people toil like devils in order that two


hundred may pay through the nose for things they do


not really want. If the nonsense were cut out of hotels


and restaurants, and the work done with simple


efficiency,



plongeurs might work six or eight hours a day


instead of ten or fifteen.



Suppose it is granted that a



plongeur's work is more


or less useless. Then the question follows, Why does any


one want him to go on working? I am trying to go beyond


the immediate economic cause, and to consider what


pleasure it can give anyone to think of men swabbing


dishes for life. For there is no doubt that people-


comfortably situated people-do find a pleasure in such


thoughts. A slave, Marcus Cato said, should be working


when he is not sleeping. It does not matter whether his


work is needed or not, he must work, because work in


itself is good-for slaves, at least. This sentiment still


survives, and it has piled up mountains of useless


drudgery.



I believe that this instinct to perpetuate useless work


is, at bottom, simply fear of the mob. The mob (the


thought runs) are such low animals that they would be


dangerous if they had leisure; it is safer to keep them


too busy to think. A rich man who happens to be


intellectually honest, if he is questioned about the


improvement of working conditions, usually says some-


thing like this:



"We know that poverty is unpleasant; in fact, since it


is so remote, we rather enjoy harrowing ourselves with


the thought of its unpleasantness. But don't expect us


to do anything about it. We are sorry for you lower


classes, just as we are sorry for a cat with the mange,


but we will fight like devils against any improvement of


your condition. We feel that you are much safer as you


are. The present state of affairs suits us, and we are not


going to take the risk of setting you free, even by an


extra hour a day. So, dear brothers, since evidently you


must sweat to pay for our trips to Italy, sweat and be


damned to you."



This is particularly the attitude of intelligent,


cultivated people; one can read the substance of it in a


hundred essays. Very few cultivated people have less


than (say) four hundred pounds a year, and naturally



they side with the rich, because they imagine that any


liberty conceded to the poor is a threat to their own


liberty. Foreseeing some dismal Marxian Utopia as the


alternative, the educated man prefers to keep things as


they are. Possibly he does not like his fellow-rich very


much, but he supposes that even the vulgarest of them


are less inimical to his pleasures, more his kind of


people, than the poor, and that he had better stand by


them. It is this fear of a supposedly dangerous mob that


makes nearly all intelligent people conservative in their


opinions.



Fear of the mob is a superstitious fear. It is based on


the idea that there is some mysterious, fundamental


difference between rich and poor, as though they were


two different races, like negroes and white men. But in


reality there is no such difference. The mass of the rich


and the poor are differentiated by their incomes and


nothing else, and the average millionaire is only the


average dishwasher dressed in a new suit. Change


places, and handy dandy, which is the justice, which is


the thief? Everyone who has mixed on equal terms with


the poor knows this quite well. But the trouble is that


intelligent, cultivated people, the very people who might


be expected to have liberal opinions, never do mix with


the poor. For what do the majority of educated people


know about poverty? In my copy of Villon's poems the


editor has actually thought it necessary to explain the


line «



Ne pain ne voyent qu'aux fenestres" by a footnote; so


remote is even hunger from the educated man's


experience. From this ignorance a superstitious fear of


the mob results quite naturally. The educated man


pictures a horde of submen, wanting only a day's liberty


to loot his house, burn his books, and set him to work


minding a machine or sweeping out a lavatory.


"Anything," he thinks, "any injustice,


sooner than let that mob loose." He does not see that


since there is no difference between the mass of rich and


poor, there is no question of setting the mob loose. The


mob is in fact loose now, and-in the shape of rich men-is


using its power to set up enormous treadmills of


boredom, such as "smart" hotels.



To sum up. A



plongeur is a slave, and a wasted slave,


doing stupid and largely unnecessary work. He is kept at


work, ultimately, because of a vague feeling that he


would be dangerous if he had leisure. And educated


people, who should be on his side, acquiesce in the


process, because they know nothing about him and


consequently are afraid of him. I say this of the



plongeur


because it is his case I have been considering; it would


apply equally to numberless other types of worker. These


are only my own ideas about the basic facts of a



plongeur's


life, made without reference to immediate economic


questions, and no doubt largely platitudes. I present


them as a sample of the thoughts that are put into one's


head by working in a hotel.




XXIII



As soon as I left the Auberge de Jehan Cottard I went to


bed and slept the clock round, all but one hour. Then I


washed my teeth for the first time in a fortnight, bathed


and had my hair cut, and got my clothes out of pawn. I


had two glorious days of loafing. I even went in my best


suit to the Auberge, leant against the bar and spent five


francs on a bottle of English beer. It is a curious


sensation, being a customer where you have been a slave's


slave. Boris was sorry that I had left the restaurant just at


the moment when we were lancés and there was a. chance


of making money. I have heard


from him since, and he tells me that he is making a


hundred francs a day and has set up a girl who is trés


serieuse and never smells of garlic.



I spent a day wandering about our quarter, saying


good-bye to everyone. It was on this day that Charlie


told me about the death of old Roucolle the miser, who


had once lived in the quarter. Very likely Charlie was


lying as usual, but it was a good story.



Roucolle died, aged seventy-four, a year or two


before I went to Paris, but the people in the quarter still


talked of him while I was there. He never equalled


Daniel Dancer or anyone of that kind, but he was an


interesting character. He went to Les Halles every


morning to pick up damaged vegetables, and ate cat's


meat, and wore newspaper instead of underclothes, and


used the wainscoting of his room for firewood, and


made himself a pair of trousers out of a sack-all this


with half a million francs invested. I should like very


much to have known him.



Like many misers, Roucolle came to a bad end


through putting his money into a wildcat scheme. One


day a Jew appeared in the quarter, an alert, businesslike


young chap who had a first-rate plan for smuggling


cocaine into England. It is easy enough, of course, to buy


cocaine in Paris, and the smuggling would be quite


simple in itself, only there is always some spy who


betrays the plan to the customs or the police. It is said


that this is often done by the very people who sell the


cocaine, because the smuggling trade is in the hands of a


large combine, who do not want competition. The Jew,


however, swore that there was no danger. He knew a way


of getting cocaine direct from Vienna, not through the


usual channels, and there would be no blackmail to pay.


He had got into touch with Roucolle through a young


Pole, a student at the Sorbonne, who


was going to put four thousand francs into the scheme if


Roucolle would put six thousand. For this they could buy


ten pounds of cocaine, which would be worth a small


fortune in England.



The Pole and the Jew had a tremendous struggle to


get the money from between old Roucolle's claws. Six


thousand francs was not much-he had more than that


sewn into the mattress in his room-but it was agony for


him to part with a sou. The Pole and the Jew were at him


for weeks on end, explaining, bullying, coaxing, arguing,


going down on their knees and imploring him to produce


the money. The old man was half frantic between greed


and fear. His bowels yearned at the thought of getting,


perhaps, fifty thousand francs' profit, and yet he could


not bring himself to risk the money. He used to sit in a


corner with his head in his hands, groaning and


sometimes yelling out in agony, and often he would kneel


down (he was very pious) and pray for strength, but still


he couldn't do it. But at last, more from exhaustion than


anything else, he gave in quite suddenly; he slit open the


mattress where his money was concealed and handed


over six thousand francs to the Jew.



The Jew delivered the cocaine the same day, and


promptly vanished. And meanwhile, as was not sur-


prising after the fuss Roucolle had made, the affair had


been noised all over the quarter. The very next morning


the hotel was raided and searched by the police.



Roucolle and the Pole were in agonies. The police were


downstairs, working their way up and searching every


room in turn, and there was the great packet of cocaine


on the table, with no place to hide it and no chance of


escaping down the stairs. The Pole was for throwing the


stuff out of the window, but Roucolle


would not hear of it. Charlie told me that he had been


present at the scene. He said that when they tried to


take the packet from Roucolle he clasped it to his


breast and struggled like a madman, although he was


seventy-four years old. He was wild with fright, but he


would go to prison rather than throw his money away.



At last, when the police were searching only one floor


below, somebody had an idea. A man on Roucolle's floor


had a dozen tins of face-powder which he was selling on


commission; it was suggested that the cocaine could be


put into the tins and passed off as face-powder. The


powder was hastily thrown out of the window and the


cocaine substituted, and the tins were put openly on


Roucolle's table, as though there there were nothing to


conceal. A few minutes later the police came to search


Roucolle's room. They tapped the walls and looked up the


chimney and turned out the drawers and examined the


floorboards, and then, just as they were about to give it


up, having found nothing, the inspector noticed the tins


on the table.



"



Tiens," he said, "have a look at those tins. I hadn't


noticed them. What's in them, eh?"



"Face-powder," said the Pole as calmly as he could


manage. But at the same instant Roucolle let out a loud


groaning noise, from alarm, and the police became


suspicious immediately. They opened one of the tins and


tipped out the contents, and after smelling it, the


inspector said that he believed it was cocaine. Roucolle


and the Pole began swearing on the names of the saints


that it was only face-powder; but it was no use, the more


they protested the more suspicious the police became.


The two men were arrested and led off to the police


station, followed by half the quarter.



At the station, Roucolle and the Pole were inter


rogated by the Commissaire while a tin of the cocaine


was sent away to be analysed. Charlie said that the


scene Roucolle made was beyond description. He wept,


prayed, made contradictory statements and denounced


the Pole all at once, so loud that he could be heard half


a street away. The policemen almost burst with


laughing at him.



After an hour a policeman came back with the tin of


cocaine and a note from the analyst. He was laughing.



"This is not cocaine, monsieur," he said.



"What, not cocaine?" said the Commissaire. "



Mais,



alors


-what is it, then?"



"It is face-powder."



Roucolle and the Pole were released at once, entirely


exonerated but very angry. The Jew had doublecrossed


them. Afterwards, when the excitement was over, it


turned out that he had played the same trick on two


other people in the quarter.



The Pole was glad enough to escape, even though he


had lost his four thousand francs, but poor old


Roucolle was utterly broken down. He took to his bed at


once, and all that day and half the night they could


hear him thrashing about, mumbling, and sometimes


yelling out at the top of his voice:



"Six thousand francs!



Nom de Jesus-Christ! Six


thousand francs!"



Three days later he had some kind of stroke, and in


a fortnight he was dead-of a broken heart, Charlie said.




XXIV



I TRAVELLED to England third class via Dunkirk and


Tilbury, which is the cheapest and not the worst way of


crossing the Channel. You had to pay extra for


a cabin, so I slept in the saloon, together with most of


the third-class passengers. I find this entry in my diary


for that day:



"Sleeping in the saloon, twenty-seven men, sixteen


women. Of the women, not a single one has washed her


face this morning. The men mostly went to the bathroom;


the women merely produced vanity cases and covered the


dirt with powder.



Q,. A secondary sexual difference?"




On the journey I fell in with a couple of Roumanians,


mere children, who were going to England on their


honeymoon trip. They asked innumerable questions


about England, and I told them some startling lies. I was


so pleased to be getting home, after being hard up for


months in a foreign city, that England seemed to me a


sort of Paradise. There are, indeed, many things in


England that make you glad to get home; bathrooms,


armchairs, mint sauce, new potatoes properly cooked,


brown bread, marmalade, beer made with veritable hops-


they are all splendid, if you can pay for them. England is


a very good country when you are not poor; and, of


course, with a tame imbecile to look after, I was not


going to be poor. The thought of not being poor made me


very patriotic. The more questions the Roumanians


asked, the more I praised England; the climate, the


scenery, the art, the literature, the laws-everything in


England was perfect.



Was the architecture in England good? the Rou-


manians asked. "Splendid!" I said. "And you should just


see the London statues! Paris is vulgar-half grandiosity


and half slums. But London-"



Then the boat drew alongside Tilbury pier. The first


building we saw on the waterside was one of those huge


hotels, all stucco and pinnacles, which stare from the


English coast like idiots staring over an asylum


wall. I saw the Roumanians, too polite to say anything,


cocking their eyes at the hotel. "Built by French


architects," I assured them; and even later, when the


train was crawling into London through the eastern


slums, I still kept it up about the beauties of English


architecture. Nothing seemed too good to say about


England, now that I was coming home and was not hard


up any more.



I went to B.'s office, and his first words knocked


everything to ruins. "I'm sorry," he said; "your employers


have gone abroad, patient and all. However, they'll be


back in a month. I suppose you can hang on till then?"



I was outside in the street before it even occurred to


me to borrow some more money. There was a month to


wait, and I had exactly nineteen and sixpence in hand.


The news had taken my breath away. For a long time I


could not make up my mind what to do. I loafed the day


in the streets, and at night, not having the slightest


notion of how to get a cheap bed in London, I went to a


"family" hotel, where the charge was seven and sixpence.


After paying the bill I had ten and twopence in hand.



By the morning I had made my plans. Sooner or later


I should have to go to B. for more money, but it seemed


hardly decent to do so yet, and in the meantime I must


exist in some hole-and-corner way. Past experience set


me against pawning my best suit. I would leave all my


things at the station cloakroom, except my second-best


suit, which I could exchange for some cheap clothes and


perhaps a pound. If I was going to live a month on thirty


shillings I must have bad clothes-indeed, the worse the


better. Whether thirty shillings could be made to last a


month I had no idea, not knowing London as I knew


Paris. Perhaps I could beg, or sell bootlaces, and I


remembered articles I had read in the Sunday papers about


beggars who have two thousand pounds sewn into their


trousers. It was, at any rate, notoriously impossible to


starve in London, so there was nothing to be anxious about.



To sell my clothes I went down into Lambeth, where


the people are poor and there are a lot of rag shops. At


the first shop I tried the proprietor was polite but


unhelpful; at the second he was rude; at the third he


was stone deaf, or pretended to be so. The fourth


shopman was a large blond young man, very pink all


over, like a slice of ham. He looked at the clothes I was


wearing and felt them disparagingly between thumb and


finger.



"Poor stuff," he said, "very poor stuff, that is." (It was


quite a good suit.) "What yer want for 'em?"



I explained that I wanted some older clothes and as


much money as he could spare. He thought for a moment,


then collected some dirty-looking rags and threw them on


to the counter. "What about the money?" I said, hoping for


a pound. He pursed his lips, then produced a



shilling and


laid it beside the clothes. I did not argue-I was going to


argue, but as I opened my mouth he reached out as


though to take up the shilling again; I saw that I was


helpless. He let me change in a small room behind the


shop.



The clothes were a coat, once dark brown, a pair of


black dungaree trousers, a scarf and a cloth cap; I had


kept my own shirt, socks and boots, and I had a comb and


razor in my pocket. It gives one a very strange feeling to be


wearing such clothes. I had worn bad enough things


before, but nothing at all like these; they were not merely


dirty and shapeless, they had - how is one to express it?-a


gracelessness, a patina of antique filth, quite different


from mere shabbiness.


They were the sort of clothes you see on a bootlace seller,


or a tramp. An hour later, in Lambeth, I saw a hang-dog


man, obviously a tramp, coming towards me, and when I


looked again it was myself, reflected in a shop window.


The dirt was plastering my face already. Dirt is a great


respecter of persons; it lets you alone when you are well


dressed, but as soon as your collar is gone it flies towards


you from all directions.



I stayed in the streets till late at night, keeping on the


move all the time. Dressed as I was, I was half afraid that


the police might arrest me as a vagabond, and I dared not


speak to anyone, imagining that they must notice a


disparity between my accent and my clothes. (Later I


discovered that this never happened.) My new clothes had


put me instantly into a new world. Everyone's demeanour


seemed to have changed abruptly. I helped a hawker pick


up a barrow that he had upset. "Thanks, mate," he said


with a grin. No one had called me mate before in my life-it


was the clothes that had done it. For the first time I


noticed, too, how the attitude of women varies with a


man's clothes. When a badly dressed man passes them


they shudder away from him with a quite frank movement


of disgust, as though he were a dead cat. Clothes are


powerful things. Dressed in a tramp's clothes it is very


difficult, at any rate for the first day, not to feel that you


are genuinely degraded. You might feel the same shame,


irrational but very real, your first night in prison.



At about eleven I began looking for a bed. I had read


about doss-houses (they are never called dosshouses, by


the way), and I supposed that one could get a bed for


fourpence or thereabouts. Seeing a man, a navvy or


something of the kind, standing on the kerb in the


Waterloo Road, I stopped and questioned him.


I said that I was stony broke and wanted the cheapest


bed I could get.



"Oh," said he, "you go to that 'ouse across the street


there, with the sign 'Good Beds for Single Men.' That's a


good kip [sleeping place], that is. I bin there myself on and


off You'll find it cheap



and clean."



It was a tall, battered-looking house, with dim lights in


all the windows, some of which were patched with brown


paper. I entered a stone passage-way, and a little etiolated


boy with sleepy eyes appeared from a door leading to a


cellar. Murmurous sounds came from the cellar, and a


wave of hot air and cheese. The boy yawned and held out


his hand.



"Want a kip? That'll be a 'og, guv'nor."



I paid the shilling, and the boy led me up a rickety


unlighted staircase to a bedroom. It had a sweetish reek of


paregoric and foul linen; the windows seemed to be tight


shut, and the air was almost suffocating at first. There


was a candle burning, and I saw that the room measured


fifteen feet square by eight high, and had eight beds in it.


Already six lodgers were in bed, queer lumpy shapes with


all their own clothes, even their boots, piled on top of


them. Someone was coughing in a loathsome manner in


one corner.



When I got into the bed I found that it was as hard as a


board, and as for the pillow, it was a mere hard cylinder


like a block of wood. It was rather worse than sleeping on


a table, because the bed was not six feet long, and very


narrow, and the mattress was convex, so that one had to


hold on to avoid falling out. The sheets stank so horribly


of sweat that I could not bear them near my nose. Also,


the bedclothes only consisted of the sheets and a cotton


counterpane, so that though stuffy it was none too warm.


Several noises recurred throughout the night. About once


in an hour the man on my left a sailor, I think-woke up,


swore vilely, and lighted a cigarette. Another man, victim


of a bladder disease, got up and noisily used his chamber-pot


half a dozen times during the night. The man in the corner


had a coughing fit once in every twenty minutes, so regularly


that one came to listen for it as one listens for the next


yap when a dog is baying the moon. It was an unspeakably


repellent sound; a foul bubbling and retching, as though the


man's bowels were being churned up within him. Once when he


struck a match I saw that he was a very old man, with a grey,


sunken face like that of a corpse, and he was wearing his


trousers wrapped round his head as a nightcap, a thing


which for some reason disgusted me very much. Every


time he coughed or the other man swore, a sleepy voice


from one of the other beds cried out:



"Shut up! Oh, for Christ's ------



sake shut up!"



I had about an hour's sleep in all. In the morning I was


woken by a dim impression of some large brown thing


coming towards me. I opened my eyes and saw that it was


one of the sailor's feet, sticking out of bed close to my


face. It was dark brown, quite dark brown like an Indian's,


with dirt. The walls were leprous, and the sheets, three


weeks from the wash, were almost raw umber colour. I got


up, dressed and went downstairs. In the cellar were a row


of basins and two slippery roller towels. I had a piece of


soap in my pocket, and I was going to wash, when I


noticed that every basin was streaked with grime-solid,


sticky filth as black as boot-blacking. I went out


unwashed. Altogether, the lodging-house had not come up


to its description as cheap and clean. It was however, as I


found later, a fairly representative lodging-house.



I crossed the river and walked a long way eastward,


finally going into a coffeeshop on Tower Hill. Anfinally


going into a coffee-shop on Tower Hill. An


ordinary London coffee-shop, like a thousand others, it


seemed queer and foreign after Paris. It was a little stuffy


room with the high-backed pews that were fashionable in


the 'forties, the day's menu written on a mirror with a


piece of soap, and a girl of fourteen handling the dishes.


Navvies were eating out of newspaper parcels, and


drinking tea in vast saucerless mugs like china tumblers.


In a corner by himself a Jew, muzzle down in the plate,


was guiltily wolfing bacon.



"Could I have some tea and bread and butter?" I said to


the girl.


She stared. "No butter, only marg," she said, surprised.


And she repeated the order in the phrase that is to London


what the eternal



coup de rouge is to Paris: "Large tea and


two slices!"



On the wall beside my pew there was a notice saying


"Pocketing the sugar not allowed," and beneath it some


poetic customer had written:



He that takes away the sugar,


Shall be called a dirty---




but someone else had been at pains to scratch out the last


word. This was England. The tea-and-two-slices cost


threepence halfpenny, leaving me with eight and


twopence.




XXV



THE eight shillings lasted three days and four nights. After


my bad experience in the Waterloo Road'. I moved


eastward, and spent the next night in a lodginghouse in


Pennyfields. This was a typical lodging-house, like scores


of others in London. It had accommo-



1 It is a curious but well-known fact that bugs are much commoner in


south than north London. For some reason they have not yet crossed the


river in any great numbers


.



dation for between fifty and a hundred men, and was


managed by a "deputy"-a deputy for the owner, that is, for


these lodging-houses are profitable concerns and are


owned by rich men. We slept fifteen or twenty in a


dormitory; the beds were again cold and hard, but the


sheets were not more than a week from the wash, which


was an improvement. The charge was ninepence or a


shilling (in the shilling dormitory the beds were six feet


apart instead of four) and the terms were cash down by


seven in the evening or out you went.



Downstairs there was a kitchen common to all lodgers,


with free firing and a supply of cooking-pots, tea-basins,


and toasting-forks. There were two great, clinker fires,


which were kept burning day and night the year through.


The work of tending the fires, sweeping the kitchen and


making the beds was done by the lodgers in rotation. One


senior lodger, a fine Norman-looking stevedore named


Steve, was known as "head of the house," and was arbiter


of disputes and unpaid chuckerout.



I liked the kitchen. It was a low-ceiled cellar deep


underground, very hot and drowsy with coke fumes, and


lighted only by the fires, which cast black velvet shadows


in the corners. Ragged washing hung on strings from the


ceiling. Red-lit men, stevedores mostly, moved about the


fires with cooking-pots; some of them were quite naked,


for they had been laundering and were waiting for their


clothes to dry. At night there were games of nap and


draughts, and songs"I'm a chap what's done wrong by my


parents," was a favourite, and so was another popular song


about a shipwreck. Sometimes late at night men would


come in with a pail of winkles they had bought cheap, and


share them out. There was a general sharing of food, and it


was taken for granted to feed men who were out


of work. A little pale, wizened creature, obviously


dying, referred to as "pore Brown, bin under the doctor


and cut open three times," was regularly fed by the


others.



Two or three of the lodgers were old-age pensioners.


Till meeting them I had never realised that there are


people in England who live on nothing but the oldage


pension of ten shillings a week. None of these old men


had any other resource whatever. One of them was


talkative, and I asked him how he managed to exist. He


said:



"Well, there's ninepence a night for yer kip-that's five


an' threepence a week. Then there's threepence on


Saturday for a shave-that's five an' six. Then say you 'as


a 'aircut once a month for sixpence-that's another


three'apence a week. So you 'as about four an' fourpence


for food an' bacca."



He could imagine no other expenses. His food was


bread and margarine and tea-towards the end of the week


dry bread and tea without milk-and perhaps he got his


clothes from charity. He seemed contented, valuing his


bed and fire more than food. But, with an income of ten


shillings a week, to spend money on a shave-it is awe-


inspiring.



All day I loafed in the streets, east as far as Wapping,


west as far as Whitechapel. It was queer after Paris;


everything was so much cleaner and quieter and drearier.


One missed the scream of the trams, and the noisy,


festering life of the back streets, and the armed men


clattering through the squares. The crowds were better


dressed and the faces comelier and milder and more


alike, without that fierce individuality and malice of the


French. There was less drunkenness, and less dirt, and


less quarrelling, and more idling. Knots of men stood at


all the corners, slightly underfed, but kept


going by the tea-and-two-slices which the Londoner


swallows every two hours. One seemed to breathe a less


feverish air than in Paris. It was the land of the tea urn


and the Labour Exchange, as Paris is the land of the bistro


and the sweatshop.



It was interesting to watch the crowds. The East


London women are pretty (it is the mixture of blood,


perhaps), and Limehouse was sprinkled with Orientals -


Chinamen, Chittagonian lascars, Dravidians selling silk


scarves, even a few Sikhs, come goodness knows how.


Here and there were street meetings. In Whitechapel


somebody called The Singing Evangel undertook to save


you from hell for the charge of sixpence. In the East


India Dock Road the Salvation Army were holding a


service. They were singing "Anybody here like sneaking


Judas?" to the tune of "What's to be done with a drunken


sailor?" On Tower Hill two Mormons were trying to


address a meeting. Round their platform struggled a mob


of men, shouting and interrupting. Someone was


denouncing them for polygamists. A lame, bearded man,


evidently an atheist, had heard the word God and was


heckling angrily. There was a confused uproar of voices.



"My dear friends, if you would only let us finish what


we were saying-!-That's right, give 'em a say. Don't get


on the argue!-No, no, you answer me. Can you



show me


God? You show 'im me, then I'll believe in 'im.-Oh, shut


up, don't keep interrupting of 'em!Interrupt yourself!-


polygamists!-Well, there's a lot to be said for polygamy.


Take the women out of industry, anyway.-My dear


friends, if you would just


-No, no, don't you slip out


of it. 'Ave you seen God? 'Ave you



touched 'im? 'Ave you


shook '



ands with 'im?-Oh, don't get on the argue, for


Christ's sake don't get on the



argue!" etc. etc. I listened


for twenty minutes, anxious to learn something about


Mormonism, but the meeting never got beyond shouts. It


is the general fate of street meetings.



In Middlesex Street, among the crowds at the market, a


draggled, down-at-heel woman was hauling a brat of five


by the arm. She brandished a tin trumpet in its face. The


brat was squalling.



"Enjoy yourself!" yelled the mother. "What yer think I


brought yer out 'ere for an' bought y'a trumpet an' all?


D'ya want to go across my knee? You little bastard, you



shall


enjoy yerself!"



Some drops of spittle fell from the trumpet. The mother


and the child disappeared, both bawling. It was all very


queer after Paris.



The last night that I was in the Pennyfields lodginghouse


there was a quarrel between two of the lodgers, a vile


scene. One of the old-age pensioners, a man of about


seventy, naked to the waist (he had been laundering), was


violently abusing a short, thickset stevedore, who stood


with his back to the fire. I could see the old man's face in


the light of the fire, and he was almost crying with grief


and rage. Evidently something very serious had happened.




The old-age pensioner


: "You---!"




The stevedore


: "Shut yer mouth, you ole---, afore I


set about yer!"




The old-age pensioner


: "Jest you try it on, you--!


I'm thirty year older'n you, but it wouldn't take much to


make me give you one as'd knock you into a bucketful of


piss!"




The stevedore


: « Ah, an' then p'raps I wouldn't smash


you up after, you ole---!"



Thus for five minutes. The lodgers sat round, unhappy,


trying to disregard the quarrel. The stevedore looked


sullen, but the old man was growing more and


more furious. He kept making little rushes at the other,


sticking out his face and screaming from a few inches


distant like a cat on a wall, and spitting. He was trying to


nerve himself to strike a blow, and not quite suc


ceeding. Finally he burst out:



"A--, that's what you are, a---! Take that


in your dirty gob and suck it, you--! By--, I'll


smash you afore I've done with you. A---, that's


what you are, a son of a --- whore. Lick that, you---!


That's what I think of you, you---, you---, you---


you BLACK BASTARD!"



Whereat he suddenly collapsed on a bench, took his


face in his hands, and began crying. The other man seeing


that public feeling was against him, went out.



Afterwards I heard Steve explaining the cause of the


quarrel. It appeared that it was all about a shilling's worth


of food. In some way the old man had lost his store of


bread and margarine, and so would have nothing to eat


for the next three days, except what the others gave him


in charity. The stevedore, who was in work and well fed,


had taunted him; hence the quarrel.



When my money was down to one and fourpence I went


for a night to a lodging house in Bow, where the charge


was only eightpence. One went down an area and through


an alley-way into a deep, stifling cellar, ten feet square.


Ten men, navvies mostly, were sitting in the fierce glare


of the fire. It was midnight, but the deputy's son, a pale,


sticky child of five, was there playing on the navvies'


knees. An old Irishman was whistling to a blind bullfinch


in a tiny cage. There were other songbirds there-tiny,


faded things, that had lived all their lives underground.


The lodgers habitually made water in the fire, to save


going across a yard to the lavatory. As I sat at the table I


felt something stir near my feet, and, looking down, saw a


wave of black things moving slowly across the floor; they


were blackbeetles.



There were six beds in the dormitory, and the sheets,


marked in huge letters "Stolen from No.--- Road," smelt


loathsome. In the next bed to me lay a very old man, a


pavement artist, with some extraordinary curvature of the


spine that made him stick right out of bed, with his back a


foot or two from my face. It was bare, and marked with


curious swirls of dirt, like a marble table-top. During the


night a man came in drunk and was sick on the floor,


close to my bed. There were bugs too-not so bad as in


Paris, but enough to keep one awake. It was a filthy place.


Yet the deputy and his wife were friendly people, and


ready to make one a cup of tea at any hour of the day or


night.




XXVI



IN the morning after paying for the usual tea-andtwo-


slices and buying half an ounce of tobacco, I had a


halfpenny left. I did not care to ask B. for more money


yet, so there was nothing for it but to go to a casual


ward. I had very little idea how to set about this, but I


knew that there was a casual ward at Romton, so I


walked out there, arriving at three or four in the after-


noon. Leaning against the pigpens in Romton market-


place was a wizened old Irishman, obviously a tramp. I


went and leaned beside him, and presently offered him


my tobacco-box. He opened the box and looked at the


tobacco in astonishment:



"By God," he said, "dere's sixpennorth o' good baccy


here! Where de hell d'you get hold o' dat? You ain't


been on de road long."



"What, don't you have tobacco on the road?" I said.



"Oh, we



has it. Look."



He produced a rusty tin which had once held Oxo


Cubes. In it were twenty or thirty cigarette ends, picked


up from the pavement. The Irishman said that he rarely


got any other tobacco; he added that, with care, one


could collect two ounces of tobacco a day on the


London pavements.



"D'you come out o' one o' de London spikes [casual


wards], eh?" he asked me.



I said yes, thinking this would make him accept me as a


fellow tramp, and asked him what the spike at Romton


was like. He said:



"Well, 'tis a cocoa spike. Dere's tay spikes, and cocoa


spikes, and skilly spikes. Dey don't give you skilly in


Romton, t'ank God-leastways, dey didn't de last time I


was here. I been up to York and round Wales since."



"What is skilly?" I said.



"Skilly? A can o' hot water wid some bloody oatmeal


at de bottom; dat's skilly. De skilly spikes is always de


worst."



We stayed talking for an hour or two. The Irishman was a


friendly old man, but he smelt very unpleasant, which was


not surprising when one learned how many diseases he


suffered from. It appeared (he described his symptoms


fully) that taking him from top to bottom he had the


following things wrong with him: on his crown, which


was bald, he had eczema; he was shortsighted, and had no


glasses; he had chronic bronchitis; he had some


undiagnosed pain in the back; he had dyspepsia; he had


urethritis; he had varicose veins, bunions and flat feet.


With this assemblage of diseases he had tramped the


roads for fifteen years.



At about five the Irishmen said, "Could you do wid e


cup o' tay? De spike don't open till six."



"I should think I could."



"Well, dere's a place here where dey gives you a free


cup o' tay and a bun.



Good tay it is. Dey makes you say


a lot o' bloody prayers after; but hell! It all passes de


time away. You come wid me."



He led the way to a small tin-roofed shed in a side-


street, rather like a village cricket pavilion. About


twenty-five other tramps were waiting. A few of them


were dirty old habitual vagabonds, the majority decent-


looking lads from the north, probably miners or cotton


operatives out of work. Presently the door opened and a


lady in a blue silk dress, wearing gold spectacles end a


crucifix, welcomed us in. Inside were thirty or forty hard


chairs, a harmonium, and a very gory lithograph of the


Crucifixion.



Uncomfortably we took off our caps end sat down. The


lady handed out the tea, and while we ate and drank she


moved to and fro, talking benignly. She talked upon


religious subjects-about Jesus Christ always having e


soft spot for poor rough men like us, and about how


quickly the time passed when you were in church, and


what a difference it made to a man on the road if he said


his prayers regularly. We hated it. We sat against the


well fingering our caps (a tramp feels indecently exposed


with his cap off), and turning pink and trying to mumble


something when the lady addressed us. There was no


doubt that she meant it all kindly. As she came up to one


of the north country lads with the plate of buns, she said


to him:



"And you, my boy, how long is it since you knelt down


and spoke with your Father in Heaven?"



Poor lad, not a word could he utter; but his belly


answered for him, with a disgraceful rumbling which


it set up at sight of the food. Thereafter he was so


overcome with shame that he could scarcely swallow his


bun. Only one men managed to answer the lady in her


own style, end he was a spry, red-nosed fellow looking


like a corporal who had lost his stripe for drunkenness.


He could pronounce the words "the dear Lord Jesus"


with less shame then anyone I ever saw. No doubt he had


learned the knack in prison.



Tea ended, and I saw the tramps looking furtively at


one another. An unspoken thought was running from


man to man-could we possibly make off before the


prayers started? Someone stirred in his chair-not getting


up actually, but with just a glance at the door, as though


half suggesting the idea of departure. The lady quelled


him with one look. She said in a more benign tone than


ever:



"I don't think you need go



quite yet. The casual ward


doesn't open till six, and we have time to kneel down and


say a few words to our Father first. I think we should all


feel better after that, shouldn't we?"



The red-nosed man was very helpful, pulling the


harmonium into place and handing out the prayerbooks.


His back was to the lady as he did this, and it was his


idea of a joke to deal the books like a pack of cards,


whispering to each men as he did so, "There y'are, mate,


there's a--- nap 'end for yer! Four aces and a king!" etc.



Bareheaded, we knelt down among the dirty teacups


and began to mumble that we had left undone those


things that we ought to have done, and done those things


that we ought not to have done, and there was no health


in us. The lady prayed very fervently, but her eyes roved


over us all the time, making sure that we were attending.


When she was not looking we grinned and winked at one


another, and whispered bawdy jokes, just to show that we did


not care; but it stuck in our throats a little. No one except


the rednosed man was self-possessed enough to speak the


responses above a whisper. We got on better with the singing,


except that one old tramp knew no tune but "Onward,


Christian soldiers," and reverted to it sometimes,


spoiling the harmony.



The prayers lasted half an hour, and then, after a


handshake at the door, we made off. "Well," said


somebody as soon as we were out of hearing, "the


trouble's over. I thought them ----prayers was never goin'


to end."



"You 'ad your bun," said another; "you got to pay for


it."



"Pray for it, you mean. Ah, you don't get much for


nothing. They can't even give you a twopenny cup of tea


without you go down on you -----knees for it."



There were murmurs of agreement. Evidently the


tramps were not grateful for their tea. And yet it was


excellent tea, as different from coffee-shop tea as good


Bordeaux is from the muck called colonial claret, and we


were all glad of it. I am sure too that it was given in a


good spirit, without any intention of humiliating us; so in


fairness we ought to have been grateful-still, we were


not.




XXVII



AT about a quarter to six the Irishman led me to the spike.


It was a grim, smoky yellow cube of brick, standing in a


corner of the workhouse grounds. With its rows of tiny,


barred windows, and a high wall and iron gates separating


it from the road, it looked much like a prison. Already a


long queue of ragged men had


formed up, waiting for the gates to open. They were of


all kinds and ages, the youngest a fresh-faced boy of


sixteen, the oldest a doubled-up, toothless mummy of


seventy-five. Some were hardened tramps, recognisable


by their sticks and billies and dust-darkened faces; some


were factory hands out of work, some agricultural


labourers, one a clerk in collar and tie, two certainly


imbeciles. Seen in the mass, lounging there, they were a


disgusting sight; nothing villainous or dangerous, but a


graceless, mangy crew, nearly all ragged and palpably


underfed. They were friendly, however, and asked no


questions. Many offered me tobacco-cigarette ends,


that is.



We leaned against the wall, smoking, and the tramps


began to talk about the spikes they had been in recently.


It appeared from what they said that all spikes are


different, each with its peculiar merits and demerits, and


it is important to know these when you are on the road.


An old hand will tell you the peculiarities of every spike


in England, as: at A you are allowed to smoke but there


are bugs in the cells; at B the beds are comfortable but


the porter is a bully; at C they let you out early in the


morning but the tea is undrinkable; at D the officials


steal your money if you have any-and so on


interminably. There are regular beaten tracks where the


spikes are within a day's march of one another. I was


told that the Barnet-St. Albans route is the best, and they


warned me to steer clear of Billericay and Chelmsford,


also Ide Hill in Kent. Chelsea was said to be the most


luxurious spike in England; someone, praising it, said


that the blankets there were more like prison than the


spike. Tramps go far afield in summer, and in winter,


they circle as much as possible round the large towns,


where it is warmer and there is more charity. But they


have to keep moving, for you may not enter any one spike,


or any two London spikes, more than once in a month, on pain


of being confined for a week.



Some time after six the gates opened and we began to


file in one at a time. In the yard was an office where an


official entered in a ledger our names and trades and ages,


also the places we were coming from and going to-this last


is intended to keep a check on the movements of tramps. I


gave my trade as "painter"; I had painted water-colours-


who has not? The official also asked us whether we had


any money, and every man said no. It is against the law to


enter the spike with more than eightpence, and any sum


less than this one is supposed to hand over at the gate. But


as a rule the tramps prefer to smuggle their money in,


tying it tight in a piece of cloth so that it will not chink.


Generally they put it in the bag of tea and sugar that every


tramp carries, or among their "papers." The "papers" are


considered sacred and are never searched.



After registering at the office we were led into the


spike by an official known as the Tramp Major (his job is


to supervise casuals, and he is generally a workhouse


pauper) and a great bawling ruffian of a porter in a blue


uniform, who treated us like cattle. The spike consisted


simply of a bathroom and lavatory, and, for the rest, long


double rows of stone cells, perhaps a hundred cells in all.


It was a bare, gloomy place of stone and whitewash,


unwillingly clean, with a smell which, somehow, I had


foreseen from its appearance; a smell of soft soap, Jeyes'


fluid and latrines-a cold, discouraging, prisonish smell.



The porter herded us all into the passage, and then told


us to come into the bathroom six at a time, to be searched


before bathing. The search was for money and tobacco,


Romton being one of those spikes where you


can smoke once you have smuggled your tobacco in, but it


will be confiscated if it is found on you. The old hands


had told us that the porter never searched below the knee,


so before going in we had all hidden our tobacco in the


ankles of our boots. Afterwards, while undressing, we


slipped it into our coats, which we were allowed to keep,


to serve as pillows.



The scene in the bathroom was extraordinarily re-


pulsive. Fifty dirty, stark-naked men elbowing each other


in a room twenty feet square, with only two bathtubs and


two slimy roller towels between them all. I shall never


forget the reek of dirty feet. Less than half the tramps


actually bathed (I heard them saying that hot water is


"weakening" to the system), but they all washed their


faces and feet, and the horrid greasy little clouts known as


toe-rags which they bind round their toes. Fresh water was


only allowed for men who were having a complete bath,


so many men had to bathe in water where others had


washed their feet. The porter shoved us to and fro, giving


the rough side of his tongue when anyone wasted time.


When my turn came for the bath, I asked if I might swill


out the tub, which was streaked with dirt, before using it.


He answered simply, "Shut yer mouth and get on with yer


bath!" That set the social tone of the place, and I did not


speak again.



When we had finished bathing, the porter tied our


clothes in bundles and gave us workhouse shirts-grey


cotton things of doubtful cleanliness, like abbreviated


nightgowns. We were sent along to the cells at once, and


presently the porter and the Tramp Major brought our


supper across from the workhouse. Each man's ration was


a half-pound wedge of bread smeared with margarine, and


a pint of bitter sugarless cocoa in a tin billy. Sitting on the


floor we wolfed this in five


minutes, and at about seven o'clock the cell doors were


locked on the outside, to remain locked till eight in the


morning.



Each man was allowed to sleep with his mate, the cells


being intended to hold two men apiece. I had no mate, and


was put in with another solitary man, a thin scrubby-faced


fellow with a slight squint. The cell measured eight feet by


five by eight high, was made of stone, and had a tiny


barred window high up in the wall and a spyhole in the


door, just like a cell in a prison. In it were six blankets, a


chamber-pot, a hot water pipe, and nothing else whatever.


I looked round the cell with a vague feeling that there was


something missing. Then, with a shock of surprise, I


realised what it was, and exclaimed:



"But I say, damn it, where are the beds?"



"



Beds?" said the other man, surprised. "There aren't no


beds! What yer expect? This is one of them spikes where


you sleeps on the floor. Christ! Ain't you got used to that


yet?"



It appeared that no beds was quite a normal condition


in the spike. We rolled up our coats and put them against


the hot-water pipe, and made ourselves as comfortable as


we could. It grew foully stuffy, but it was not warm


enough to allow of our putting all the blankets underneath,


so that we could only use one to soften the floor. We lay a


foot apart, breathing into one another's face, with our


naked limbs constantly touching, and rolling against one


another whenever we fell asleep. One fidgeted from side


to side, but it did not do much good; whichever way one


turned there would be first a dull numb feeling, than a


sharp ache as the hardness of the floor wore through the


blanket. One could sleep, but not for more than ten


minutes on end.



About midnight the other man began making homo-


sexual attempts upon me-a nasty experience in a locked,


pitch-dark cell. He was a feeble creature and I could


manage him easily, but of course it was impossible to go


to sleep again. For the rest of the night we stayed awake,


smoking and talking. The man told me the story of his


life-he was a fitter, out of work for three years. He said


that his wife had promptly deserted him when he lost his


job, and he had been so long away from women that he


had almost forgotten what they were like. Homosexuality


is general among tramps of long standing, he said.



At eight the porter came along the passage unlocking


the doors and shouting "All out!" The doors opened,


letting out a stale, fetid stink. At once the passage was full


of squalid, grey-shirted figures, each chamber-pot in hand,


scrambling for the bathroom. It appeared that in the


morning only one tub of water was allowed for the lot of


us, and when I arrived twenty tramps had already washed


their faces; I took one glance at the black scum floating on


the water, and went unwashed. After this we were given a


breakfast identical with the previous night's supper, our


clothes were returned to us, and we were ordered out into


the yard to work. The work was peeling potatoes for the


pauper's dinner, but it was a mere formality, to keep us


occupied until the doctor came to inspect us. Most of the


tramps frankly idled. The doctor turned up at about ten


o'clock and we were told to go back to our cells, strip and


wait in the passage for the inspection.



Naked and shivering, we lined up in the passage. You


cannot conceive what ruinous, degenerate curs we looked,


standing there in the merciless morning light. A tramp's


clothes are bad, but they conceal far worse things; to see


him as he really is, unmitigated,


you must see him naked. Flat feet, pot bellies, hollow


chests, sagging muscles-every kind of physical rottenness


was there. Nearly everyone was under-nourished, and


some clearly diseased; two men were wearing trusses, and


as for the old mummy-like creature of seventy-five, one


wondered how he could possibly make his daily march.


Looking at our faces, unshaven and creased from the


sleepless night, you would have thought that all of us were


recovering from a week on the drink.



The inspection was designed merely to detect small-


pox, and took no notice of our general condition. A young


medical student, smoking a cigarette, walked rapidly


along the line glancing us up and down, and not inquiring


whether any man was well or ill. When my cell


companion stripped I saw that his chest was covered with


a red rash, and, having spent the night a few inches away


from him, I fell into a panic about smallpox. The doctor,


however, examined the rash and said that it was due


merely to under-nourishment.



After the inspection we dressed and were sent into the


yard, where the porter called our names over, gave us back


any possessions we had left at the office, and distributed


meal tickets. These were worth sixpence each, and were


directed to coffee-shops on the route we had named the


night before. It was interesting to see that quite a number


of the tramps could not read, and had to apply to myself


and other "scholards" to decipher their tickets.



The gates were opened, and we dispersed immediately.


How sweet the air does smell-even the air of a back street


in the suburbs-after the shut-in, subfaecal stench of the


spike! I had a mate now, for while we were peeling


potatoes I had made friends with an Irish tramp named


Paddy Jaques, a melancholy


pale man who seemed clean and decent. He was going to


Edbury spike, and suggested that we should go together.


We set out, getting there at three in the afternoon. It was a


twelve-mile walk, but we made it fourteen by getting lost


among the desolate north London slums. Our meal tickets


were directed to a coffee-shop in Ilford. When we got


there, the little chit of a serving-maid, having seen our


tickets and grasped that we were tramps, tossed her head


in contempt and for a long time would not serve us.


Finally she slapped on the table two "large teas" and four


slices of bread and dripping-that is, eightpenny-worth of


food. It appeared that the shop habitually cheated the


tramps of twopence or so on each ticket; having tickets


instead of money, the tramps could not protest or go


elsewhere.





XXVIII



PADDY was my mate for about the next fortnight, and, as


he was the first tramp I had known at all well, I want to


give an account of him. I believe that he was a typical


tramp and there are tens of thousands in England like him.




He was a tallish man, aged about thirty-five, with fair


hair going grizzled and watery blue eyes. His features


were good, but his cheeks had lanked and had that greyish,


dirty in the grain look that comes of a bread and margarine


diet. He was dressed, rather better than most tramps, in a


tweed shooting jacket and a pair of old evening trousers


with the braid still on them. Evidently the braid figured in


his mind as a lingering scrap of respectability, and he took


care to sew it on again when it came loose. He was careful


of his appearance altogether, and carried a razor and


bootbrush that he would not sell, though he had sold his


"papers" and even his pocket-knife long since.


Nevertheless, one would have known him for a tramp a


hundred yards away. There was something in his drifting


style of walk, and the way he had of hunching his


shoulders forward, essentially abject. Seeing him walk,


you felt instinctively that he would sooner take a blow


than give one.




He had been brought up in Ireland, served two years


in the war, and then worked in a metal polish factory,


where he had lost his job two years earlier. He was


horribly ashamed of being a tramp, but he had picked up


all a tramp's ways. He browsed the pavements


unceasingly, never missing a cigarette end, or even an


empty cigarette packet, as he used the tissue paper for


rolling cigarettes. On our way into Edbury he saw a


newspaper parcel on the pavement, pounced on it, and


found that it contained two mutton sandwiches, rather


frayed at the edges; these he insisted on my sharing. He


never passed an automatic machine without giving a tug


at the handle, for he said that sometimes they are out of


order and will eject pennies if you tug at them. He had


no stomach for crime, however. When we were in the


outskirts of Romton, Paddy noticed a bottle of milk on a


doorstep, evidently left there by mistake. He stopped,


eyeing the bottle hungrily.



"Christ!" he said, "dere's good food goin' to waste.


Somebody could knock dat bottle off, eh? Knock it off


easy."



I saw that he was thinking of "knocking it off" himself.


He looked up and down the street; it was a quiet


residential street and there was nobody in sight. Paddy's


sickly, chap-fallen face yearned over the milk. Then he


turned away, saying gloomily:



"Best leave it. It don't do a man no good to steal.


Tank God, I ain't never stolen nothin' yet."



It was funk, bred of hunger, that kept him virtuous.


With only two or three sound meals in his belly, he would


have found courage to steal the milk.



He had two subjects of conversation, the shame and


come-down of being a tramp, and the best way of getting


a free meal. As we drifted through the streets he would


keep up a monologue in this style, in a whimpering, self-


pitying Irish voice:



"It's hell bein' on de road, eh? It breaks yer heart goin'


into dem bloody spikes. But what's a man to do else, eh?


I ain't had a good meat meal for about two months, an'


me boots is getting bad, an'-Christ! How'd it be if we was


to try for a cup o' tay at one o' dem convents on de way


to Edbury? Most times dey're good for a cup o' tay. Ah,


what'd a man do widout religion, eh? I've took cups o' tay


from de convents, an' de Baptists, an' de Church of


England, an' all sorts. I'm a Catholic meself. Dat's to say,


I ain't been to confession for. about seventeen year, but


still I got me religious feelin's, y'understand. An' dem


convents is always good for a cup o' tay . . ." etc. etc. He


would keep this up all day, almost without stopping.



His ignorance was limitless and appalling. He once


asked me, for instance, whether Napoleon lived before


Jesus Christ or after. Another time, when I was looking


into a bookshop window, he grew very perturbed because


one of the books was called Of the



Imitation of Christ. He


took this for blasphemy. "What de hell do dey want to go


imitatin' of



Him for?" he demanded angrily. He could


read, but he had a kind of loathing for books. On our


way from Romton to Edbury I went into a public library,


and, though Paddy did not want to read, I suggested that


he should come in and rest his



legs. But he preferred to wait on the pavement. "No," he


said, "de sight of all dat bloody print makes me sick."



Like most tramps, he was passionately mean about


matches. He had a box of matches when I met him, but I


never saw him strike one, and he used to lecture me for


extravagance when I struck mine. His method was to


cadge a light from strangers, sometimes going without a


smoke for half an hour rather than strike a match.



Self-pity was the clue to his character. The thought of


his bad luck never seemed to leave him for an instant. He


would break long silences to exclaim, apropos of nothing,


"It's hell when yer clo'es begin to go up de spout, eh?" or


"Dat tay in de spike ain't tay, it's piss," as though there


was nothing else in the world to think about. And he had a


low, worm-like envy of anyone who was better off-not of


the rich, for they were beyond his social horizon, but of


men in work. He pined for work as an artist pines to be


famous. If he saw an old man working he would say


bitterly, "Look at dat old keepin' able-bodied men out o'


work"; or if it was a boy, "It's dem young devils what's


takin' de bread out of our mouths." And all foreigners to


him were "dem bloody dagoes"-for, according to his


theory, foreigners were responsible for unemployment.



He looked at women with a mixture of longing and


hatred. Young, pretty women were too much above him to


enter into his ideas, but his mouth watered at prostitutes.


A couple of scarlet-lipped old creatures would go past;


Paddy's face would flush pale pink, and he would turn and


stare hungrily after the women. "Tarts!" he would


murmur, like a boy at a sweetshop window. He told me


once that he had not had to do with a woman for two


years-since he had lost his job, that is-and he had


forgotten that one could aim higherthan prostitutes.


He had the regular character of a tramp-abject, envious,


a jackal's character.



Nevertheless, he was a good fellow, generous by nature


and capable of sharing his last crust with a friend;


indeed he did literally share his last crust with me


more than once. He was probably capable of work too, if


he had been well fed for a few months. But two years of


bread and margarine had lowered his standards hopelessly.


He had lived on this filthy imitation of food till his own


mind and body were compounded of inferior stuff. It was


malnutrition and not any native vice that had destroyed


his manhood.




XXIX



ON the way to Edbury I told Paddy that I had a friend


from whom I could be sure of getting money, and


suggested going straight into London rather than face


another night in the spike. But Paddy had not been in


Edbury spike recently, and, tramp-like, he would not


waste a night's free lodging. We arranged to go into


London the next morning. I had only a halfpenny, but


Paddy had two shillings, which would get us a bed each


and a few cups of tea.



The Edbury spike did not differ much from the one at


Romton. The worst feature was that all tobacco was


confiscated at the gate, and we were warned that any man


caught smoking would be turned out at once. Under the


Vagrancy Act tramps can be prosecuted for smoking in the


spike-in fact, they can be prosecuted for almost anything;


but the authorities generally save the trouble of a


prosecution by turning disobedient men out of doors.


There was no work to do, and the cells were fairly


comfortable. We slept two in a cell,


"one up, one down"-that is, one on a wooden shelf and


one on the floor, with straw palliasses and plenty of


blankets, dirty but not verminous. The food was the same


as at Romton, except that we had tea instead of cocoa.


One could get extra tea in the morning, as the Tramp


Major was selling it at a halfpenny a mug, illicitly no


doubt. We were each given a hunk of bread and cheese to


take away for our midday meal.



When we got into London we had eight hours to kill


before the lodging-houses opened. It is curious how one


does not notice things. I had been in London innumerable


times, and yet till that day I had never noticed one of the


worst things about London-the fact that it costs money


even to sit down. In Paris, if you had no money and could


not find a public bench, you would sit on the pavement.


Heaven knows what sitting on the pavement would lead to


in London-prison, probably. By four we had stood five


hours, and our feet seemed red-hot from the hardness of


the stones. We were hungry, having eaten our ration as


soon as we left the spike, and I was out of tobacco-it


mattered less to Paddy, who picked up cigarette ends. We


tried two churches and found them locked. Then we tried a


public library, but there were no seats in it.-As a last hope


Paddy suggested trying a Romton House; by the rules they


would not let us in before seven, but we might slip in


unnoticed. We walked up to the magnificent doorway (the


Rowton Houses really are magnificent) and very casually,


trying to look like regular lodgers, began to stroll in.


Instantly a man lounging in the doorway, a sharp-faced


fellow, evidently in some position of authority, barred the


way.



"You men sleep 'ere last night?"



"No."



"Then-off."



We obeyed, and stood two more hours on the street


corner. It was unpleasant, but it taught me not to use the


expression "street corner loafer," so I gained something


from it.



At six we went to a Salvation Army shelter. We could


not book beds till eight and it was not certain that there


would be any vacant, but an official, who called us


"Brother," let us in on the condition that we paid for two


cups of tea. The main hall of the shelter was a great white-


washed barn of a place, oppressively clean and bare, with


no fires. Two hundred decentish, rather subdued-looking


people were sitting packed on long wooden benches. One


or two officers in uniform prowled up and down. On the


wall were pictures of General Booth, and notices


prohibiting cooking, drinking, spitting, swearing,


quarrelling and gambling. As a specimen of these notices,


here is one that I copied word for word:



"Any man found gambling or playing cards will be


expelled and will not be admitted under any


circumstances.


"A reward will be given for information leading to


the discovery of such persons.


"The officers in charge appeal to all lodgers to


assist them in keeping this hostel free from the


DETESTABLE EVIL OF GAMBLING."




"Gambling or playing cards" is a delightful phrase.



To my eye these Salvation Army shelters, though clean,


are far drearier than the worst of the common lodging-


houses. There is such a hopelessness about some of the


people there-decent, broken-down types who have pawned


their collars but are still trying for office jobs.


Coming to a Salvation Army shelter, where it is


at least clean, is their last clutch at respectability. At the


next table to me were two foreigners, dressed in rags


but manifestly gentlemen. They were playing chess


verbally, not even writing down the moves. One of them


was blind, and I heard them say that they had been


saving up for a long time to buy a board, price half a


crown, but could never manage it. Here and there were


clerks out of work, pallid and moody. Among a group of


them a tall, thin, deadly pale young man was talking


excitedly. He thumped his fist on the table and boasted


in a strange, feverish style. When the officers were out


of hearing he broke out into startling blasphemies



"I tell you what, boys, I'm going to get that job to-


morrow. I'm not one of your bloody down-on-the-knee


brigade; I can look after myself. Look at that notice there!


'The Lord will provide!' A bloody lot He's ever provided me


with. You don't catch me trusting to the


Lord. You


leave it to me, boys.



I'm going to get that job," etc. etc.



I watched him, struck by the wild, agitated way in


which he talked; he seemed hysterical, or perhaps a little


drunk. An hour later I went into a small room, apart


from the main hall, which was intended for reading. It


had no books or papers in it, so few of the lodgers went


there. As I opened the door I saw the young clerk in there


all alone; he was on his knees, praying. Before I shut the


door again I had time to see his face, and it looked


agonised. Quite suddenly I realised, from the expression


of his face, that he was starving.



The charge for beds was eightpence. Paddy and I had


fivepence left, and we spent it at the "bar," where food


was cheap, though not so cheap as in some common


lodging-houses. The tea appeared to be made


with tea



dust, which I fancy had been given to the


Salvation Army in charity, though they sold it at three-


halfpence a cup. It was foul stuff. At ten o'clock an


officer marched round the hall blowing a whistle.


Immediately everyone stood up.



"What's this for?" I said to Paddy, astonished.



"Dat means you has to go off to bed. An' you has to


look sharp about it, too."



Obediently as sheep, the whole two hundred men


trooped off to bed, under the command of the officers.



The dormitory was a great attic like a barrack room, with


sixty or seventy beds in it. They were clean and tolerably


comfortable, but very narrow and very close together, so


that one breathed straight into one's neighbour's face.


Two officers slept in the room, to see that there was no


smoking and no talking after lights-out. Paddy and I had


scarcely a wink of sleep, for there was a man near us


who had some nervous trouble, shellshock perhaps,


which made him cry out "Pip!" at irregular intervals. It


was a loud, startling noise, something like the toot of a


small motor-horn. You never knew when it was coming,


and it was a sure preventer of sleep. It appeared that Pip,


as the others called him, slept regularly in the shelter,


and he must have kept ten or twenty people awake every


night. He was an example of the kind of thing that


prevents one from ever getting enough sleep when men


are herded as they are in these lodging-houses.



At seven another whistle blew, and the officers went


round shaking those who did not get up at once. Since


then I have slept in a number of Salvation Army


shelters, and found that, though the different houses


vary a little, this semi-military discipline is the same in


all of them. They are certainly cheap, but they are too


like workhouses for my taste. In some of them there is


even a compulsory religious service once or twice a week,


which the lodgers must attend or leave the house. The fact


is that the Salvation Army are so in the habit of thinking


themselves a charitable body that they cannot even run a


lodging-house without making it stink of charity.



At ten I went to B.'s office and asked him to lend me a


pound. He gave me two pounds and told me to come again


when necessary, so that Paddy and I were free of money


troubles for a week at least. We loitered the day in


Trafalgar Square, looking for a friend of Paddy's who


never turned up, and at night went to a lodginghouse in a


back alley near the Strand. The charge was elevenpence,


but it was a dark, evil-smelling place, and a notorious


haunt of the "nancy boys." Downstairs, in the murky


kitchen, three ambiguous-looking youths in smartish blue


suits were sitting on a bench apart, ignored by the other


lodgers. I suppose they were "nancy boys." They looked


the same type as the apache boys one sees in Paris, except


that they wore no sidewhiskers. In front of the fire a fully


dressed man and a stark-naked man were bargaining. They


were newspaper sellers. The dressed man was selling his


clothes to the naked man. He said:



"'Ere y'are, the best rig-out you ever 'ad. A tosheroon


[half a crown] for the coat, two 'ogs for the trousers, one


and a tanner for the boots, and a 'og for the cap and scarf.


That's seven bob."



"You got a 'ope! I'll give yer one and a tanner for the


coat, a 'og for the trousers, and two 'ogs for the rest.


That's four and a tanner."



"Take the 'ole lot for five and a tanner, chum."


"Right y'are, off with 'em. I got to get out to sell my late


edition."



The clothed man stripped, and in three minutes their


positions were reversed; the naked man dressed, and the


other kilted with a sheet of the Daily Mail.



The dormitory was dark and close, with fifteen beds in


it. There was a horrible hot reek of urine, so beastly that at


first one tried to breathe in small, shallow puffs, not filling


one's lungs to the bottom. As I lay down in bed a man


loomed out of the darkness, leant over me and began


babbling in an educated, half-drunken voice:



"An old public school boy, what? [He had heard me


say something to Paddy.] Don't meet many of the old


school here. I am an old Etonian. You know-twenty years


hence this weather and all that." He began to quaver out


the Eton boating-song, not untunefully:




"Jolly boating weather,



And a hay harvest---"





"Stop that----


noise!" shouted several lodgers.



"Low types," said the old Etonian, "very low types. Funny


sort of place for you and me, eh? Do you know what my


friends say to me? They say, 'M-, you are past


redemption.' Quite true, I am past redemption.


I've come down in the world; not like these-----


s here,


who couldn't come down if they tried. We chaps who


have come down ought to hang together a bit. Youth will


be still in our faces-you know. May I offer you a drink?"



He produced a bottle of cherry brandy, and at the same


moment lost his balance and fell heavily across my legs.


Paddy, who was undressing, pulled him upright.



"Get back to yer bed, you silly ole-----


!"



The old Etonian walked unsteadily to his bed and


crawled under the sheets with all his clothes on, even his


boots. Several times in the night I heard him murmuring,


"M-, you are past redemption," as though the phrase


appealed to him. In the morning he was


lying asleep fully dressed, with the bottle clasped in his


arms. He was a man of about fifty, with a refined, worn


face, and, curiously enough, quite fashionably dressed. It


was queer to see his good patent-leather shoes sticking out


of that filthy bed. It occurred to me, too, that the cherry


brandy must have cost the equivalent of a fortnight's


lodging, so he could not have been seriously hard up.


Perhaps he frequented common lodginghouses in search of


the "nancy boys."



The beds were not more than two feet apart. About


midnight I woke up to find that the man next to me was


trying to steal the money from beneath my pillow. He was


pretending to be asleep while he did it, sliding his hand


under the pillow as gently as a rat. In the morning I saw


that he was a hunchback, with long, apelike arms. I told


Paddy about the attempted theft. He laughed and said:



"Christ! You got to get used to dat. Dese lodgin'


houses is full o' thieves. In some houses dere's notlain'


safe but to sleep wid all yer clo'es on. I seen 'em steal a


wooden leg off a cripple before now. Once I see a man-


fourteen stone man he was-come into a lodgin'-house wid


four pound ten. He puts it under his mattress. 'Now,' he


says, 'any dat touches dat money does it over my body,'


he says. But dey done him all de same. In de mornin' he


woke up on de floor. Four fellers had took his mattress by


de corners an' lifted him off as light as a feather. He never


saw his four pound ten again."


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