showed less plainly on their faces than it showed on
the faces of these two men as they waited for the
coming of the porter.

He came. He barely looked at us. " Full up,"
he said, and shut the door.

"Another night of it," groaned the Carpenter.
In the dim light the Carter looked wan and gray.

Indiscriminate charity is vicious, say the pro
fessional philanthropists. Well, I resolved to be
vicious.

"Come on; get your knife out and come here,"
I sai4 to the Carter, drawing him into a dark alley.

He glared at me in a frightened manner, and
tried to draw back. Possibly he took me for a
latter day Jack-the-Ripper, with a penchant for
elderly male paupers. Or he may have thought I
was inveigling him into the commission of some
desperate crime. Anyway, he was frightened.

It will be remembered, at the outset, that I sewed
a pound inside my stoker s singlet under the arm
pit. This was my emergency fund, and I was now
called upon to use it for the first time.

Not until I had gone through the acts of a con
tortionist, and shown the round coin sewed in, did
I succeed in getting the Carter s help. 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 away and do it myself.

[[85]]

p084 _ -chap- _ toc-1 _ p085w _ toc-2 _ +chap+ _ p086

v?