and ate. I had intended to do some cooking my
self, but the smell of the place stole away my appe
tite, or, rather, wrested it from me; so I contented
myself with watching other men cook and eat.

One workman, home from work, sat down oppo
site me at the rousrh wooden table, and besran his
meal. A handful of salt on the not over-clean table
constituted his butter. Into it he dipped his bread,
mouthful by mouthful, and washed it down with tea
from a big mug. A piece of fish completed his bill
of fare. He ate silently, looking neither to right
nor left nor across at me. Here and there, at the
various tables, other men were eating, just as
silently. In the whole room there was hardly a
note of conversation. A feeling of gloom pervaded
the ill-lighted place. Many of them sat and brooded
over the crumbs of their repast, and made me
wonder, as Childe Roland wondered, what evil they
had done that they should be punished so.

From the kitchen came the sounds of more sre-
nial life, and I ventured in to the range where the
men were cooking. But the smell I had noticed on
entering was stronger here, and a rising nausea
drove me into the street for fresh air.

On my return I paid fivepence for a cabin, took
my receipt for the same in the form of a huge brass
check, and went upstairs to the smoking-room.
Here, a couple of small billiard tables and several

[[245]]

p244 _ -chap- _ toc-1 _ p245w _ toc-2 _ +chap+ _ p246

v?