ey shook their heads.

"Then let us go and tell them we want to get out," I continued. "Come
on."

But the poor creatures were aghast. So I left them to their fate, and
went up to the nearest Salvation Army man.

"I want to go," I said. "I came here for breakfast in order that I might
be in shape to look for work. I didn't think it would take so long to
get breakfast. I think I have a chance for work in Stepney, and the
sooner I start, the better chance I'll have of getting it."

He was really a good fellow, though he was startled by my request. "Wy,"
he said, "we're goin' to 'old services, and you'd better sty."

"But that will spoil my chances for work," I urged. "And work is the
most important thing for me just now."

As he was only a private, he referred me to the adjutant, and to the
adjutant I repeated my reasons for wishing to go, and politely requested
that he let me go.

"But it cawn't be done," he said, waxing virtuously indignant at such
ingratitude. "The idea!" he snorted. "The idea!"

"Do you mean to say that I can't get out of here?" I demanded. "That you
will keep me here against my will?"

"Yes," he snorted.

I do not know what might have happened, for I was waxing indignant
myself; but the "congregation" had "piped" the situation, and he drew me
over to a corner of the room, and then into another room. Here he again
demanded my reasons for wishing to go.

"I want to go," I said, "because I wish to look for work over in Stepney,
and every hour lessens my chance of finding work. It is now twenty-five
minutes to twelve. I did not think when I came in that it would take so
long to get a breakfast."

"You 'ave business, eh?" he sneered. "A man of business you are, eh?
Then wot did you come 'ere for?"

"I was out all night, and I needed a breakfast in order to strengthen me
to find work. That is why I came here."

"A nice thing to do," he went on in the same sneering manner. "A man
with business shouldn't come 'ere. You've tyken some poor man's
breakfast 'ere this morning, that's wot you've done."

Which was a lie, for every mother's son of us had come in.

Now I submit, was this Christian-like, or even honest?--after I had
plainly stated that I was homeless and hungry, and that I wished to look
for work, for him to call my looking for work "business," to call me
therefore a business man, and to draw the corollary that a man of
business, and well off, did not require a cha