Trafalgar Square, to the Strand. I crossed the
Waterloo Bridge to the Surrey side, cut across
to Blackfriars Road, coming out near the Surrey
Theatre, and arrived at the Salvation Army bar
racks before seven o clock. This was the peg.
And by the peg, in the argot, is meant the place
where a free meal may be obtained.

Here was a motley crowd of woebegone wretches
who had spent the night in the rain. Such pro
digious misery ! and so much of it ! Old men,
young men, all manner of men, and boys to boot,
and all manner of boys. Some were drowsing
standing up; half a score of them were stretched
out on the stone steps in most painful postures, all
of them sound asleep, the skin of their bodies show
ing red through the holes and rents in their raijs.
And up and down the street and across the street
for a block either way, each doorstep had from two
to three occupants, all asleep, their heads bent for
ward on their knees. And, it must be remembered,
these are not hard times in England. Things are
going on very much as they ordinarily do, and times
are neither hard nor easy.

And then came the policeman. " Get outa that, you
bloody swine! Eigh ! eigh ! Get out now!" And
like swine he drove them from the doorways and
scattered them to the four winds of Surrey. But
when he encountered the crowd asleep on the steps

[[122]]

p121 _ -chap- _ toc-1 _ p122w _ toc-2 _ +chap+ _ p123

v?