Living Alone

ght twenty shillings a week to her pocket. She was in the habit of sitting every morning in a small office, collecting evidence from charitable spies about the Naughty Poor, and, af

f this work, because the different coloured

ore whose eyes the alphabet is like a poem or a prayer. Touch on stationery and you touched an insane spot in Sarah Brown's mind. Her dream of a perfect old age was staged in a stationer's shop in a quiet brown street; there she would spend twilit days in stroking t

ly shut its eye during office hours. Her Dog David liked the work too, as the hearth-rug was a comfortab

e looked up was that of Watkins, Thelma Bennett, single, machinist. The ciphers informed the initiated that Watkins had called on the War Association, to ask for Help and Advice, See Full Report. Sarah Brown felt sad and clumsy, and made two blots, one in green on the Watkins ca

finished turning the blot upon her card into the silhouette of a dromedary by a few ingenious strokes

fetch her half-pint of milk daily, and only yesterday I learnt from a neighbour that she had left Mud Street three we

e have already notified you three times that the woman is not entitled to milk fro

g masculine ear of the Dog David might be spared. "After Baby Week, you know, we feel

-maker." Sarah Brown was rapidly becoming exasperated with everyb

art. "I am sorry to say that she will not promise t

small purple cipher that stood for hm-hm. "I wi

Presently the red face of the Relie

f Plummett-" h

ustly, because he knew she was deaf and raised his voice, with the best intentions, to such a degree that the case papers on the index were occasionally blow

oared the Relieving Officer.

h Brown. "She has moved from Mud Stre

the groceries, she paying no rent now. In the case of Plummett, I thought you might be interested to know that she got a month this morning for assaulting the Sanitary Inspector-pul

Sarah Brown, who had been a changed w

s said to have fallen through a hole in the floor of the room she and her three children slept in

ah Brown. "P. Tonk, unmarrie

1918-model bun, made of stubble. Sarah Brown almost always forgot the necessity of food until she was irrevocably in the 'bus on her way to work. But this morning, as she had taken her seat with David in the bouncing ferry-boat, there had been a panting

a drug; her mind was always on the brink of innocent intoxication. Perhaps she was only half a woman, so that half a joy could make her heart reel and sing, and half a sorrow break it. She was defenceless against imp

office table confronted Sarah Brown, and she wondered that she could ever have seen it as anything but a butt. She wondered how she had been able to sit daily in front of that stout and earnest index without

te, and above the tree a rough blue and silver sky contradicted all the doctrines preached in offices. There was in the wind something of the old raw simplicity and mirth that always haunts the sea, and penetrates inland only on rare spring days. The high

said Sarah Brown. Sh

ists of crimes, a short one for Registrars and Workers, and a very long one for the registered. High on the list of crimes possible to Registrars and Workers is Sentimentality. It is sentimental to feel personal affection for a Case, or to give a child of the Naughty Poor a penny without full enquiry, or to say "A-goo" to a grey pensive baby eating dirt on the pavement, or to acknowledge the right of a Case to ask questions sometimes instead of answering them, or to disapprove of spyi

o her Dog David in a broken voice. She

ging friars, the gypsies of the air, they claim alms as a right and as a seal of friendship; with their mouths full of your crumbs they share with you their innocent and vulgar wit, they give yo

aps these were magic noises, for she heard them so clearly. She broke her second sandwich upon the window-sill, and the sparrows crossed the street an

o reason why he should never look chic; he has a slimmer figure than the bullfinch, for instance, who always manages to look so well-tailored. It is just

oing farther away. Either you eat that san

sparrow moistened his beak and came.... He ate, they all ate, and did not seek to escape as the door of the office opened and the witch came in. She went straight to the window and picked up from among the stooping sparrows a piece of the broken sandwich, and ate it. The Dog David was making sure that there was no survi

index, and had taken from its drawer a notification form. In the space g

s that the above name is only an alias, the address being also probably false, for the genuine Charity's place of origin is said to be the home rather than the office. Th

there were as many witches in the air as there are birds, I bet you twopence there would be constant a

Brown, "I have got

ed at being interrupted. "Oh, well, I can sympathis

e son to Sarah Brown, came and laid his chin, wit

strange and senseless deceivers at large? Religion which has forgotten ecstasy.... Law which has forgotten just

ly. "Magic generally suffered because it w

s, and when did Charity cease to be a comforting and secret thing between one friend and another? Does Love m

Brown, how long do you want me to keep quiet, w

with him and weeps with him, and eats and drinks with him, so that at last, when his

rather dirty silver lining. I am the False Steward, in the interest of the Superfluously Comfortable. My Masters sit upon the King's Highway, taking toll in bitterness and humiliation from every traveller along that road. For surely comfort is every man's heritage, surely the happy years should come to every man-not doled out, not meanly dep

h like this; while she was under its influence she made up a psalm pretty nearly as good as one of David's. Her mother was much alarmed abou

till three daily. There is Love and April outside the window, there is too much wind and laughter outside to allow of the forming of Habits. I have seen Love and the Spring only through the glass of a charity office window, the rude

ng David from her. "What has happen

full of the spirits of parsons and social work

ou what, let's go and sit on the Swing-leg Seat on the Heath. Th

her Sandwich of Knowledge; she had left on the table her puny paper defiance. David, except that he had required but little temptation, had played Adam's part very creditably in the affair. For him Eden had