The People of the Abyss

rpenter-well, I should have taken him for a carpenter. He looked it, lean and wiry, with shrewd, observant eyes, and hands that had grown twisted to the handles of tools through

rced out of the whirl of industry by the younger a

e it was all that remained to us. It was Poplar, or the streets and night. Both men were anxious for a bed, for they were "about gone," as they phrased it. The C

l you were ready to cry aloud with the pain of each aching muscle; and you would marvel that you could endure so much and live. Should you rest upon a bench, and your tired eyes close, depend upon it the policeman would rouse you and gruffly order you to "move on." You may rest upon the bench, and benches are few and far between; but if

til you died you would tell the story of your adventure to groups of admiring friends. It would

f you are as soft as you ought to be you may not rest so well as usual. But for old men of sixty, seventy, and eighty, ill-fed, with neither meat nor blood, to greet the dawn unrefreshed, and to stagger

I say, we walked along, and when they grew bitter and cursed the land, I cursed with them, cursed as an American waif would curse, stranded in a strange and terrible land. And, as I tried to lead them to believe, and succeeded in making them believe, they took me for a "seafaring man," w

breeze, swung on in a long and tireless stride which reminded me strongly of the plains wolf or coyote. Both kept their eyes upon the pavement as they walked and talked, and every now and then one or

e kernels inside. They picked up stray bits of bread the size of peas, apple cores so black and dirty one would not take them to be apple cores, and these things these two men took into their mouths, and chewed

three good meals that day, and the snug bed I could occupy if I wished, and my social philosophy, and my evolutionary belief in the slow development and metamorphosis of things-in spite of all this, I say, I felt impelled to talk rot with them or hold m

and to the point; it was to get out of the country. "As fast as God'll let me," I assured them; "I'll hit only the high places, till you won'

does that give me to look for work? S'pose I do get into the casual ward? Keep me in all day to-morrow, let me out mornin' o' next day. What then? The law sez I can't get in another casual ward that night less'n ten miles distant. Have to hurry an' walk to be there in time that day. What chance does that give me to look for a job? S'pose I don't

the Carter. "Many's the time I've pa

d, after a long pause in the conversation. "Two of them I ate yeste

the Carter. "An' I'm fagged out. My

s'n a pint of water," said the Carpenter, for my benefit. And, on asking him w

the word "cant" in his vocabulary, a vocabular

h much information. Having taken a cold bath on entering, I would be given for supper six ounces of bread and "three parts of skilly." "Three parts

suppose, and a silv

ome places where you'd not get any spoon. 'Old 'e

skilly at 'Ackney

raised the Carpenter, and each

t. George's in the Ea

nodded. He had

hat?" I

five in the mornin', an' you get up an' take a 'sluice'-if there's any soap.

six ounces," cor

When first I started I couldn't eat the skilly nor the br

ortions," said the Carter. "I 'a

n wh

or break ten to eleven hundredweight o' stones. I don't 'ave to break stones; I

er, "is to be locked up in a cell to p

s sleep, you refuse to pick oakum, or brea

ey'll run you in," answered the Carpenter.

. Then you finish your task an' 'ave supper, same as before, three parts o' skilly any six ounces o' br

andkerchiefs, and each in his handkerchief put all his worldly possessions, with the exception of the "bit o' baccy" down his sock. And then, as the last light was f

strong, but she had no pity for the two old men who stood by my side! She was a young woman, and I was a young man, and what vague sex promptings impelled her to pity me put her sentiment on the lowest plane. Pity for old men is an a

a bell handle, on the o

l," said the

at anybody's door, I pulled o

d in one terrified

imperilled their chance for a bed and three parts of skilly.

ton," I said t

t," the Carter hur

nly draws a yearly salary of from seven to nine pounds, is a very finicky

the faintest, shortest possible push. I have looked at waiting men where life or death was in the issue; but anxious suspen

ed at us. "Full up," he

the Carpenter. In the dim light

say the professional philanthropi

come here," I said to the Carte

atter-day Jack-the-Ripper, with a penchant for elderly male paupers. Or he may have thought

ide my stoker's singlet under the armpit. This was my emergenc

lp. Even then his hand was trembling so that I was afraid he would cut me instead of the stitches, and I was forced to take the knife

how the other half lived. And at once they shut up like clams. I was not of their kind; my speech had change

I asked, as the wait

cup of tea," meekl

up of tea," meekly

they could understand that I was no pauper. One had eaten a ha'penny roll that day, the other had eaten nothing. And they called for

it. Step by step I increased their order-eggs, rashers of bacon, more eggs, more bacon, more tea, more slices and so fort

ve 'ad in a fortnigh

, that," said

lops. It resembled tea less than lager beer resembles champagne

mplated suicide. The Carter, not a week before, had stood on the bridge and looked at the water, and pondered the question. Water, the Carpenter insisted with

e down with fever and went to the hospital for three months. Then he was done for. He came out weak, debilitated, no strong young son to stand by him, his little business gone glimmering, and not a farthing. The thing had happened, and the game was up. No chance for an old man to start again. Friends all poor and unable to help. He had tri

o the army; one, troop sergeant-major of the Seventh Hussars, dying in India after the Mutiny; the other, after nine years und

rt. "I'm fit for the anatomist, that's all. I'm wastin' away, sir,

d like parchment over the bones, and the sensation produced w

ssus and three bonnie lassies. But they all died.

ring to turn the conversation into more cheerful channels; "after t

discussing belly delights and the fine dishes th

and never broke my f

d nature wouldn't stand it, sir, an' I near died. Sometimes, walkin' the streets at night, I've ben that desperate I've made up my mind to win the horse or

man, and a great deal better than some of the middle-class men I have heard. What surprised me was the hold they had on the world, its geography and peoples, and on recent and c

Lighting a cigarette, I was about to throw away the burning match when the Carter reached for it. I proffered him the box, but he said, "Never mind, won't wa

g to waste

nking of the wash-board ribs