ich thrilled every man
with any devil in him. Peter the Painter is a hero to this day.

* * * * *

I had known the quarter for many years before it interested me. It was
not until I was prowling around on a Fleet Street assignment that I
learnt to hate it. A murder had been committed over a cafe in Lupin
Street: a popular murder, fruity, cleverly done, and with a sex
interest. Of course every newspaper and agency developed a virtuous
anxiety to track the culprit, and all resources were directed to that
end. Journalism is perhaps the only profession in which so fine a public
spirit may be found. So it was that the North Country paper of which I
was a hanger-on flung every available man into the fighting line, and
the editor told me that I might, in place of the casual paragraphs for
the London Letter, do something good on the Vassiloff murder.

It was a night of cold rain, and the pavements were dashed with smears
of light from the shop windows. Through the streaming streets my hansom
leaped; and as I looked from the window, and noted the despondent
biliousness of Bethnal Green, I realized that the grass withereth, the
flower fadeth.

I dismissed the cab at Brick Lane, and, continuing the tradition which
had been instilled into me by my predecessor on the London Letter, I
turned into one of the hostelries and had a vodka to keep the cold out.
Little Russia was shutting up. The old shawled women, who sit at every
corner with huge baskets of black bread and sweet cakes, were departing
beneath umbrellas. The stalls of Osborn Street, usually dressed with
foreign-looking confectionery, were also retiring. Indeed, everybody
seemed to be slinking away, and as I sipped my vodka, and felt it burn
me with raw fire, I cursed news editors and all publics which desired to
read about murders. I was perfectly sure that I shouldn't do the least
good; so I had another, and gazed through the kaleidoscopic window,
rushing with rain, at the cheerful world that held me.

Oh, so sad it is, this quarter! By day the streets are a depression,
with their frowzy doss-houses and their vapour-baths. Grey and sickly is
the light. Grey and sickly, too, are the leering shops, and grey and
sickly are the people and the children. Everything has followed the
grass and the flower. Childhood has no place; for above the roofs you
may see the sharp points of a Council School. Such games as happen are
played but listlessly,