d not believe its ears. There must be work, and so
food for whoever was willing to work; but presently this cry silenced,
and it became plain that somebody must do something.

Food was the first thought; and from the Limehouse district, and a
refuge known as the Outcasts' Home, a great van loaded with loaves of
bread came in two or three times a week, taking back to the refuge in
the empty cart such few as could be induced to try its mercies. Coffee
was also provided on a few occasions; and as the news spread by means of
that mysterious telegraphy current in the begging fraternity, suddenly
the Square overflowed with their kind; and who wanted to work and could
not, and who wanted no work on any consideration, no man could
determine.

With the story of this tangle, of the bewilderment and dismay for all
alike, and the increasing despair of the unemployed, this chronicle has
but indirectly to do. Trafalgar Square was emptied at last by means
already familiar to all. Beggars skulked back to their hiding-places
like wharf-rats to the rotten piles that shelter them; the unemployed
dispersed also, showing themselves once more in the files that
registered when the census of the unemployed was decided upon; and then,
for the most part, were lost to public sight in the mass of general,
every-day, to-be-expected wretchedness which makes up London below the
surface.

Scores of wretched figures crouched on the icy asphalt of the Square on
a pouring night early in November, before its clearing had been ordered.
The great van was expected, but had not appeared, and men huddled in the
most sheltered corners of this most unsheltered spot, cowering under any
rag of covering they had been able to secure. In a corner by the lions a
pair had taken refuge,--a boy of ten or so, wrapped in two newspaper
placards, and his bare feet tucked into a horse's nose-bag, too old and
rotten for any further service in its own line of duty; over him
crouched a girl, whose bent figure might have belonged to eighty, but
whose face as she looked up showed youth which even her misery could not
wipe out. She had no beauty, save soft dark eyes and a delicate face,
both filled with terror as she put one arm over the boy, who sprung to
his feet. "I'll not go where Nell can't," he said, the heavy sleep still
in his eyes; "we're goin' to keep together, me an' Nell is."

"'Tain't the van," the girl said, still holding him; "they tried to take
him back to the R