it, had expiring fits and starts of restlessness. After
all seemed quiet, if one cab rattled by, half-a-dozen would surely
follow; and Houselessness even observed that intoxicated people
appeared to be magnetically attracted towards each other: so that we
knew when we saw one drunken object staggering against the shutters of
a shop, that another drunken object would stagger up before five
minutes were out, to fraternise or fight with it. When we made a
divergence from the regular species of drunkard, the thin-armed,
puff-faced, leaden-lipped gin-drinker, and encountered a rarer
specimen of a more decent appearance, fifty to one but that specimen
was dressed in soiled mourning. As the street experience in the night,
so the street experience in the day; the common folk who come
unexpectedly into a little property, come unexpectedly into a deal of
liquor.

At length these flickering sparks would die away, worn out--the last
veritable sparks of waking life trailed from some late pieman or
hot-potato man--and London would sink to rest. And then the yearning
of the houseless mind would be for any sign of company, any lighted
place, any movement, anything suggestive of any one being up--nay,
even so much as awake, for the houseless eye looked out for lights in
windows.

Walking the streets under the pattering rain, Houselessness would walk
and walk and walk, seeing nothing but the interminable tangle of
streets, save at a corner, here and there, two policemen in
conversation, or the sergeant or inspector looking after his men. Now
and then in the night--but rarely--Houselessness would become aware of
a furtive head peering out of a doorway a few yards before him, and,
coming up with the head, would find a man standing bolt upright to
keep within the doorway's shadow, and evidently intent upon no
particular service to society. Under a kind of fascination, and in a
ghostly silence suitable to the time, Houselessness and this gentleman
would eye one another from head to foot, and so, without exchange of
speech, part, mutually suspicious. Drip, drip, drip, from ledge and
coping, splash from pipes and water-spouts, and by-and-by the
houseless shadow would fall upon the stones that pave the way to
Waterloo-bridge; it being in the houseless mind to have a halfpenny
worth of excuse for saying "Good night" to the toll-keeper, and
catching a glimpse of his fire. A good fire and a good great-coat and
a good woollen neck-shawl, were c