the door.

Like a flash, for all his eighty-seven years, the old sailor was speeding
away on the desperate chance of finding shelter elsewhere. I stood and
debated with two other men, wise in the knowledge of casual wards, as to
where we should go. They decided on the Poplar Workhouse, three miles
away, and we started off.

As we rounded the corner, one of them said, "I could a' got in 'ere to-
day. I come by at one o'clock, an' the line was beginnin' to form
then--pets, that's what they are. They let 'm in, the same ones, night
upon night."

CHAPTER VIII--THE CARTER AND THE CARPENTER

The Carter, with his clean-cut face, chin beard, and shaved upper lip, I
should have taken in the United States for anything from a master workman
to a well-to-do farmer. The Carpenter--well, I should have taken him for
a carpenter. He looked it, lean and wiry, with shrewd, observant eyes,
and hands that had grown twisted to the handles of tools through forty-
seven years' work at the trade. The chief difficulty with these men was
that they were old, and that their children, instead of growing up to
take care of them, had died. Their years had told on them, and they had
been forced out of the whirl of industry by the younger and stronger
competitors who had taken their places.

These two men, turned away from the casual ward of Whitechapel Workhouse,
were bound with me for Poplar Workhouse. Not much of a show, they
thought, but to chance it was all that remained to us. It was Poplar, or
the streets and night. Both men were anxious for a bed, for they were
"about gone," as they phrased it. The Carter, fifty-eight years of age,
had spent the last three nights without shelter or sleep, while the
Carpenter, sixty-five years of age, had been out five nights.

But, O dear, soft people, full of meat and blood, with white beds and
airy rooms waiting you each night, how can I make you know what it is to
suffer as you would suffer if you spent a weary night on London's
streets! Believe me, you would think a thousand centuries had come and
gone before the east paled into dawn; you would shiver till you were
ready to cry aloud with the pain of each aching muscle; and you would
marvel that you could endure so much and live. Should you rest upon a
bench, and your tired eyes close, depend upon it the policeman would
rouse you and gruffly order you to "move on." You may rest upon the
bench, and benches are few and far between