rity breakfast, and that by
taking a charity breakfast I had robbed some hungry waif who was not a
man of business.

I kept my temper, but I went over the facts again, and clearly and
concisely demonstrated to him how unjust he was and how he had perverted
the facts. As I manifested no signs of backing down (and I am sure my
eyes were beginning to snap), he led me to the rear of the building
where, in an open court, stood a tent. In the same sneering tone he
informed a couple of privates standing there that "'ere is a fellow that
'as business an' 'e wants to go before services."

They were duly shocked, of course, and they looked unutterable horror
while he went into the tent and brought out the major. Still in the same
sneering manner, laying particular stress on the "business," he brought
my case before the commanding officer. The major was of a different
stamp of man. I liked him as soon as I saw him, and to him I stated my
case in the same fashion as before.

"Didn't you know you had to stay for services?" he asked.

"Certainly not," I answered, "or I should have gone without my breakfast.
You have no placards posted to that effect, nor was I so informed when I
entered the place."

He meditated a moment. "You can go," he said.

It was twelve o'clock when I gained the street, and I couldn't quite make
up my mind whether I had been in the army or in prison. The day was half
gone, and it was a far fetch to Stepney. And besides, it was Sunday, and
why should even a starving man look for work on Sunday? Furthermore, it
was my judgment that I had done a hard night's work walking the streets,
and a hard day's work getting my breakfast; so I disconnected myself from
my working hypothesis of a starving young man in search of employment,
hailed a bus, and climbed aboard.

After a shave and a bath, with my clothes all off, I got in between clean
white sheets and went to sleep. It was six in the evening when I closed
my eyes. When they opened again, the clocks were striking nine next
morning. I had slept fifteen straight hours. And as I lay there
drowsily, my mind went back to the seven hundred unfortunates I had left
waiting for services. No bath, no shave for them, no clean white sheets
and all clothes off, and fifteen hours' straight sleep. Services over,
it was the weary streets again, the problem of a crust of bread ere
night, and the long sleepless night in the streets, and the pondering of
the prob