eed lonely.

At half-past one the steady downpour ceased, and only showers fell
thereafter. The homeless folk came away from the protection of the
buildings, and slouched up and down and everywhere, in order to rush up
the circulation and keep warm.

One old woman, between fifty and sixty, a sheer wreck, I had noticed
earlier in the night standing in Piccadilly, not far from Leicester
Square. She seemed to have neither the sense nor the strength to get out
of the rain or keep walking, but stood stupidly, whenever she got the
chance, meditating on past days, I imagine, when life was young and blood
was warm. But she did not get the chance often. She was moved on by
every policeman, and it required an average of six moves to send her
doddering off one man's beat and on to another's. By three o'clock, she
had progressed as far as St. James Street, and as the clocks were
striking four I saw her sleeping soundly against the iron railings of
Green Park. A brisk shower was falling at the time, and she must have
been drenched to the skin.

Now, said I, at one o'clock, to myself; consider that you are a poor
young man, penniless, in London Town, and that to-morrow you must look
for work. It is necessary, therefore, that you get some sleep in order
that you may have strength to look for work and to do work in case you
find it.

So I sat down on the stone steps of a building. Five minutes later a
policeman was looking at me. My eyes were wide open, so he only grunted
and passed on. Ten minutes later my head was on 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 colonies 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.

"Come 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