batting at the nets, and they were lissom and
strong and active; he could not help hearing their shouts and laughter.
The cry of youth was insistent, and he saw the beautiful thing before him
only with his eyes.

CXIII

At the beginning of the last week in August Philip entered upon his duties
in the 'district.' They were arduous, for he had to attend on an average
three confinements a day. The patient had obtained a 'card' from the
hospital some time before; and when her time came it was taken to the
porter by a messenger, generally a little girl, who was then sent across
the road to the house in which Philip lodged. At night the porter, who had
a latch-key, himself came over and awoke Philip. It was mysterious then to
get up in the darkness and walk through the deserted streets of the South
Side. At those hours it was generally the husband who brought the card. If
there had been a number of babies before he took it for the most part with
surly indifference, but if newly married he was nervous and then sometimes
strove to allay his anxiety by getting drunk. Often there was a mile or
more to walk, during which Philip and the messenger discussed the
conditions of labour and the cost of living; Philip learnt about the
various trades which were practised on that side of the river. He inspired
confidence in the people among whom he was thrown, and during the long
hours that he waited in a stuffy room, the woman in labour lying on a
large bed that took up half of it, her mother and the midwife talked to
him as naturally as they talked to one another. The circumstances in which
he had lived during the last two years had taught him several things about
the life of the very poor, which it amused them to find he knew; and they
were impressed because he was not deceived by their little subterfuges. He
was kind, and he had gentle hands, and he did not lose his temper. They
were pleased because he was not above drinking a cup of tea with them, and
when the dawn came and they were still waiting they offered him a slice of
bread and dripping; he was not squeamish and could eat most things now
with a good appetite. Some of the houses he went to, in filthy courts off
a dingy street, huddled against one another without light or air, were
merely squalid; but others, unexpectedly, though dilapidated, with
worm-eaten floors and leaking roofs, had the grand air: you found in them
oak balusters exquisitely carved, and the walls had st