my knees, I was dozing, and the same policeman
was saying gruffly, " Ere, you, get outa that!"

I got. And, like the old woman, I continued
to get; for every time I dozed, a policeman was
there to rout me along again. Not long after,
when I had given this up, I was walking with a
young Londoner (who had been out to the col
onies and wished he were out to them again), when
I noticed an open passage leading under a building
and disappearing in darkness. A low iron gate
barred the entrance.

"Qome on," I said. " Let s climb over and get
a good sleep."

"Wot ? " he answered, recoiling from me. " An
get run in fer three months! Blimey if I do!"

Later on, I was passing Hyde Park with a young
boy of fourteen or fifteen, a most wretched-looking
youth, gaunt and hollow-eyed and sick.

"Let s go over the fence," I proposed, "and
crawl into the shrubbery for a sleep. The bobbies
couldn t find us there."

"No fear," he answered. " There s the park
guardians, and they d run you in for six months."

Times have changed, alas ! When I was a
youngster I used to read of homeless boys sleep
ing in doorways. Already the thing has become
a tradition. As a stock situation it will doubt
lessly linger in literature for a century to come,

[[117]]

p116 _ -chap- _ toc-1 _ p117w _ toc-2 _ +chap+ _ p118

v?