rotten potatoes, beans, and vegetables, while little
children clustered like flies around a festering mass
of fruit, thrusting their arms to the shoulders into
the liquid corruption, and drawing forth morsels, but
partially decayed, which they devoured on the spot.

Not a hansom did I meet with in all my drive,
while mine was like an apparition from another and
better world, the way the children ran after it and
alongside. And as far as I could see were the
solid walls of brick, the slimy pavements, and the
screaming streets; and for the first time in my life
the fear of the crowd smote me. It was like the
fear of the sea; and the miserable multitudes, street
upon street, seemed so many waves of a vast and
malodorous sea, lapping about me and threatening
to well up and over me.

"Stepney, sir; Stepney Station," the cabby called
down.

I looked about. It was really a railroad station,
and he had driven desperately to it as the one
familiar spot he had ever heard of in all that
wilderness.

"Well ? " I said.

He spluttered unintelligibly, shook his head, and
looked very miserable. " I m a strynger ere," he
managed to articulate. " An if yer don t want
Stepney Station, I m blessed if I know wotcher do
want."

[[8]]

p007 _ -chap- _ toc-1 _ p008w _ toc-2 _ +chap+ _ p009

v?