l fingers to do something useful, and give them,
even the degenerates, some chance!

And we must stop our blind alley occupation for growing lads, for at the
end of the alley stands an open door to the netherworld, and through it
youthful life passes with little prospect of return.

CHAPTER X. PLAY IN THE UNDERWORLD

It may seem a strange thing, but children do play in the underworld.
They have their own games and their times and seasons too!

Yet no one can watch them as they play without experiencing feelings
more or less pathetic. There is something incongruous about it that may
cause a smile, but there is also something that will probably cause a
tear.

For their playgrounds are the gutters or the pavements. Happy are
the children when they can procure a spacious pavement, for in the
underworld wide pavements are scarce; still narrow pavements and gutters
are always to hand.

It is summer time, the holidays have come! No longer the hum, babble
and shouts of children are heard in and around those huge buildings, the
County Council schools.

The sun pours its rays into the unclean streets, the thermometer
registers eighty in the shade. Down from the top storey and other
storeys of the blocks the children come, happy in the consciousness that
for one month at least they will be free from school, without dodging
the school attendance officer.

"Hop-scotch" season has commenced, and as if by magic the pavements of
the narrow streets are covered with chalked lines, geometrical figures
and numerals, and the mysterious word "tod" confronts you, stares at
you, and puzzles you.

Who can understand the intricacies of "hop-scotch" or the fascination
of "tod"? None but the girls of the underworld. Simple pleasures please
them--a level pavement, a piece of chalk, a "pitcher," the sun overhead,
dirt around, a few companions and non-troublesome babies, are their
chief requirements; for few of these girls come out to play without the
eternal baby.

Notice first, if you will, how deftly these foster-mothers handle the
babies; their very method tells of long-continued practice. What slaves
these girls are! But they have brought the baby's feeding-bottle, and
also that other fearsome indispensable of underworld infant life, "the
comforter."

They are going to make a day of it, a mad and merry day, for they have
with them some pieces of bread and margarine to sustain them in the toil
of nursing and the exhaustion of "