in the
garbage thrown in the mud for rotten potatoes, beans, and vegetables,
while little children clustered like flies around a festering mass of
fruit, thrusting their arms to the shoulders into the liquid corruption,
and drawing forth morsels but partially decayed, which they devoured on
the spot.

Not a hansom did I meet with in all my drive, while mine was like an
apparition from another and better world, the way the children ran after
it and alongside. And as far as I could see were the solid walls of
brick, the slimy pavements, and the screaming streets; and for the first
time in my life the fear of the crowd smote me. It was like the fear of
the sea; and the miserable multitudes, street upon street, seemed so many
waves of a vast and malodorous sea, lapping about me and threatening to
well up and over me.

"Stepney, sir; Stepney Station," the cabby called down.

I looked about. It was really a railroad station, and he had driven
desperately to it as the one familiar spot he had ever heard of in all
that wilderness.

"Well," I said.

He spluttered unintelligibly, shook his head, and looked very miserable.
"I'm a strynger 'ere," he managed to articulate. "An' if yer don't want
Stepney Station, I'm blessed if I know wotcher do want."

"I'll tell you what I want," I said. "You drive along and keep your eye
out for a shop where old clothes are sold. Now, when you see such a
shop, drive right on till you turn the corner, then stop and let me out."

I could see that he was growing dubious of his fare, but not long
afterwards he pulled up to the curb and informed me that an old-clothes
shop was to be found a bit of the way back.

"Won'tcher py me?" he pleaded. "There's seven an' six owin' me."

"Yes," I laughed, "and it would be the last I'd see of you."

"Lord lumme, but it'll be the last I see of you if yer don't py me," he
retorted.

But a crowd of ragged onlookers had already gathered around the cab, and
I laughed again and walked back to the old-clothes shop.

Here the chief difficulty was in making the shopman understand that I
really and truly wanted old clothes. But after fruitless attempts to
press upon me new and impossible coats and trousers, he began to bring to
light heaps of old ones, looking mysterious the while and hinting darkly.
This he did with the palpable intention of letting me know that he had
"piped my lay," in order to bulldose me, through fear of exposure, into
paying he