---
title: "A Clergyman's Daughter"
author: "George Orwell"
languages: [en]
shelf: "Literature"
section: 3 of 5
url: https://scriptura.si/works/orwell-clergymans-daughter-fp20180418/3/
cite: "George Orwell, A Clergyman's Daughter, section 3. Scriptura (scriptura.si), https://scriptura.si/works/orwell-clergymans-daughter-fp20180418/3/"
---

# A Clergyman's Daughter

*George Orwell*

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> _Title:_ A Clergyman’s Daughter
_Date of first publication:_ 1935
_Author:_ George Orwell (1903-1950)
_Date first posted:_ Apr. 16, 2018
_Date last updated:_ Apr. 16, 2018
Faded Page eBook #20180418

> This ebook was produced by: Al Haines, Cindy Beyer & the online
Distributed Proofreaders Canada team at http://www.pgdpcanada.net

> [Cover Illustration]

> BY THE SAME AUTHOR

> Down and Out in Paris and London
Burmese Days
Keep the Aspidistra Flying
The Road to Wigan Pier
Homage to Catalonia
Coming Up for Air
Inside the Whale
The Lion and the Unicorn
Animal Farm
Critical Essays
The English People
Nineteen Eighty-Four

> _Posthumous Collections_

> The Collected Essays, Journalism and Letters of George Orwell
_Edited by Sonia Orwell and Ian Angus_
Volume I An Age Like This 1920-1943
Volume II My Country Right or Left 1940-1943
Volume III As I Please 1943-1945
Volume IV In Front of Your Nose 1945-1950

> Shooting an Elephant
England Your England
Collected Essays

> A

> CLERGYMAN’S

> DAUGHTER

> BY
                             GEORGE  ORWELL

> LONDON
                           SECKER  &  WARBURG

> Martin Secker & Warburg Limited
                    54 Poland Street, London W1V 3DF

> First published (Gollancz) 1935
                          Uniform Edition 1960
                       Reprinted 1965, 1973, 1979

> SBN: 436 35010 6

> _Printed in Great Britain by_
                          REDWOOD BURN LIMITED
                          _Trowbridge & Esher_

> TRANSCRIBER NOTES

> Misspelled words and printer errors have been corrected. Where multiple
spellings occur, majority use has been employed.

> Punctuation has been maintained except where obvious printer errors
occur.

> [The end of _A Clergyman’s Daughter_ by George Orwell]

## 3. CHAPTER III

Source: https://scriptura.si/works/orwell-clergymans-daughter-fp20180418/3/ · cite a paragraph as https://scriptura.si/works/orwell-clergymans-daughter-fp20180418/3/#p-N

### §I

[¶1] (_Scene_: Trafalgar Square. Dimly visible through the mist, a dozen
people, Dorothy among them, are grouped about one of the benches near
the north parapet.)

[¶2] _Charlie_ (singing): “’Ail Mary, ’ail Mary, ’a-il Ma-ary——” (Big Ben
strikes ten.)

[¶3] _Snouter_ (mimicking the noise): “Ding dong, ding dong! Shut your ——
noise, can’t you? Seven more hours of it on this —— square before we
got the chance of a set-down and a bit of sleep! Cripes!”

[¶4] _Mr. Tallboys_ (to himself): “Non sum qualis eram boni sub regno
Edwardi! In the days of my innocence, before the Devil carried me up
into a high place and dropped me into the Sunday newspapers—that is to
say when I was Rector of Little Fawley-cum-Dewsbury . . .”

[¶5] _Deafie_ (singing): “With my willy willy, _with_ my willy willy——”

[¶6] _Mrs. Wayne_: “Ah, dearie, as soon as I set eyes on you I knew as you
was a lady born and bred. You and me’ve known what it is to come down in
the world, haven’t we, dearie? It ain’t the same for us as what it is
for some of these others here.”

[¶7] _Charlie_ (singing): “’Ail Mary, ’ail Mary, ’a-il Ma-ary, full of
grace!”

[¶8] _Mrs. Bendigo_: “Calls himself a bloody husband, does he? Four pound a
week in Covent Garden and ’is wife doing a starry in the bloody Square!
Husband!”

[¶9] _Mr. Tallboys_ (to himself): “Happy days, happy days! My ivied church
under the sheltering hillside—my red-tiled Rectory slumbering among
Elizabethan yews! My library, my vinery, my cook, house-parlourmaid and
groom-gardener! My cash in the bank, my name in Crockford! My black suit
of irreproachable cut, my collar back to front, my watered silk cassock
in the church precincts . . .”

[¶10] _Mrs. Wayne_: “Of course the one thing I _do_ thank God for, dearie, is
that my poor dear mother never lived to see this day. Because if she
ever _had_ of lived to see the day when her eldest daughter—as was
brought up, mind you, with no expense spared and milk straight from the
cow . . .”

[¶11] _Mrs. Bendigo_: “_Husband!_”

[¶12] _Ginger_: “Come on, less ’ave a drum of tea while we got the chance.
Last we’ll get to-night—coffee shop shuts at ’ar-parse ten.”

[¶13] _The Kike_: “Oh Jesus! This bloody cold’s gonna kill me! I ain’t got
nothing on under my trousers. Oh Je-e-e-_eeze_!”

[¶14] _Charlie_ (singing): “’Ail Mary, ’ail Mary——”

[¶15] _Snouter_: “Fourpence! Fourpence for six —— hours on the bum! And that
there nosing sod with the wooden leg queering our pitch at every boozer
between Aldgate and the Mile End Road. With ’is —— wooden leg and ’is
war medals as ’e bought in Lambeth Cut! Bastard!”

[¶16] _Deafie_ (singing): “With my willy willy, _with_ my willy willy——”

[¶17] _Mrs. Bendigo_: “Well, I told the bastard what I thought of ’im, anyway.
‘Call yourself a man?’ I says. ‘I’ve seen things like you kep’ in a
bottle at the ’orspital,’ I says. . . .”

[¶18] _Mr. Tallboys_ (to himself): “Happy days, happy days! Roast beef and
bobbing villagers, and the peace of God that passeth all understanding!
Sunday mornings in my oaken stall, cool flower scent and frou-frou of
surplices mingling in the sweet corpse-laden air! Summer evenings when
the late sun slanted through my study window—I pensive, boozed with
tea, in fragrant wreaths of Cavendish, thumbing drowsily some half-calf
volume—_Poetical Works of William Shenstone, Esq._, Percy’s _Reliques
of Ancient English Poetry_, J. Lempriere, D.D., professor of immoral
theology . . .”

[¶19] _Ginger_: “Come on, ’oo’s for that drum of riddleme-ree? We got the milk
and we got the tea. Question is, ’oo’s got any bleeding sugar?”

[¶20] _Dorothy_: “This cold, this cold! It seems to go right through you!
Surely it won’t be like this all night?”

[¶21] _Mrs. Bendigo_: “Oh, cheese it! I ’ate these snivelling tarts.”

[¶22] _Charlie_: “Ain’t it going to be a proper perisher, too? Look at the
perishing river mist creeping up that there column. Freeze the
fish-hooks off of ole Nelson before morning.”

[¶23] _Mrs. Wayne_: “Of course, at the time that I’m speaking of we still had
our little tobacco and sweetstuff business on the corner, you’ll
understand. . . .”

[¶24] _The Kike_: “Oh Je-e-e-_eeze_! Lend’s that overcoat of yours, Ginger.
I’m bloody freezing!”

[¶25] _Snouter_: “—— double-crossing bastard! P’raps I won’t bash ’is navel
in when I get a ’old of ’im!”

[¶26] _Charlie_: “Fortunes o’ war, boy, fortunes o’ war. Perishing Square
to-night—rumpsteak and kip on feathers to-morrow. What else d’you
expect on perishing Thursday?”

[¶27] _Mrs. Bendigo_: “Shove up, Daddy, shove up! Think I want your lousy old
’ed on my shoulder—me a married woman?”

[¶28] _Mr. Tallboys_ (to himself): “For preaching, chanting and intoning I was
unrivalled. My ‘Lift up your Hearts’ was renowned throughout the
diocese. All styles I could do you, High Church, Low Church Broad Church
and No Church. Throaty Anglo-Cat Warblings, straight from the shoulder
muscular Anglican, or the adenoidal Low Church whine in which still lurk
the Houyhnhnm-notes of neighing chapel elders. . . .”

[¶29] _Deafie_ (singing): “_With_ my willy willy——”

[¶30] _Ginger_: “Take your ’ands off that bleeding overcoat, Kikie. You don’t
get no clo’es of mine while you got the chats on you.”

[¶31] _Charlie_ (singing):

[¶32] “As pants the ’art for cooling streams,
              When ’eated in the chase——”

[¶33] _Mrs. McElligot_ (in her sleep): “Was ’at you, Michael dear?”

[¶34] _Mrs. Bendigo_: “It’s my belief as the sneaking bastard ’ad another wife
living when ’e married me.”

[¶35] _Mr. Tallboys_ (from the roof of his mouth, stage curate-wise,
reminiscently): “If any of you know cause or just impediment why these
two persons should not be joined together in holy matrimony . . .”

[¶36] _The Kike_: “A pal! A bloody pal! And won’t lend his bloody overcoat!”

[¶37] _Mrs. Wayne_: “Well, now as you’ve mentioned it, I must admit as I never
_was_ one to refuse a nice cup of tea. I know that when our poor dear
mother was alive, pot after pot we used to . . .”

[¶38] _Nosy Watson_ (to himself, angrily): “Sod! . . . Gee’d into it and then
a stretch all round. . . . Never even done the bloody job. . . . Sod!”

[¶39] _Deafie_ (singing): “_With_ my willy willy——”

[¶40] _Mrs. McElligot_ (half asleep): “_Dear_ Michael. . . . He was real
loving, Michael was. Tender an’ true. . . . Never looked at another man
since dat evenin’ when I met’m outside Kronk’s slaughter-house an’ he
gimme de two pound o’ sausage as he’d bummed off de International Stores
for his own supper. . . .”

[¶41] _Mrs. Bendigo_: “Well, I suppose we’ll get that bloody tea this time
to-morrow.”

[¶42] _Mr. Tallboys_ (chanting, reminiscently): “By the waters of Babylon we
sat down and wept, when we remembered thee, O Zion! . . .”

[¶43] _Dorothy_: “Oh, this cold, this cold!”

[¶44] _Snouter_: “Well, I don’t do no more —— starries this side of
Christmas. I’ll ’ave my kip to-morrow if I ’ave to cut it out of their
bowels.”

[¶45] _Nosy Watson_: “Detective, is he? Smith of the Flying Squad! Flying
Judas more likely! All they can bloody do—copping the old offenders
what no beak won’t give a fair chance.”

[¶46] _Ginger_: “Well, I’m off for the fiddlede-dee. ’Oo’s got a couple of
clods for the water?”

[¶47] _Mrs. McElligot_ (waking): “Oh dear, oh dear! If my back ain’t fair
broke! Oh holy Jesus, if dis bench don’t catch you across de kidneys!
An’ dere was me dreamin’ I was warm in kip wid a nice cup a’ tea an’ two
o’ buttered toast waitin’ by me bedside. Well, dere goes me last wink o’
sleep till I gets into Lambeth public lib’ry to-morrow.”

[¶48] _Daddy_ (his head emerging from within his overcoat like a tortoise’s
from within its shell): “Wassat you said, boy? Paying money for water!
How long’ve you bin on the road, you ignorant young scut? Money for
bloody water? Bum it, boy, bum it! Don’t buy what you can bum and don’t
bum what you can steal. That’s my word—fifty year on the road, man and
boy.” (Retires within his coat.)

[¶49] _Mr. Tallboys_ (chanting): “O all ye works of the Lord——”

[¶50] _Deafie_ (singing): “_With_ my willy willy——”

[¶51] _Charlie_: “’Oo was it copped you, Nosy?”

[¶52] _The Kike_: “Oh Je-e-e-_eeze_!”

[¶53] _Mrs. Bendigo_: “Shove up, shove up! Seems to me some folks think
they’ve took a mortgage on this bloody seat.”

[¶54] _Mr. Tallboys_ (chanting): “O all ye works of the Lord, curse ye the
Lord, curse Him and vilify Him for ever!”

[¶55] _Mrs. McElligot_: “What I always says is, it’s always us poor bloody
Catholics dat’s down in de bloody dumps.”

[¶56] _Nosy Watson_: “Smithy. Flying Squad—flying sod! Give us the plans of
the house and everything, and then had a van full of coppers waiting and
nipped the lot of us. I wrote it up in the Black Maria:

[¶57] ‘Detective Smith knows how to gee;
                 Tell him he’s a —— from me.’”

[¶58] _Snouter_: “’Ere, what about our —— tea? Go on, Kikie, you’re a young
’un; shut that —— noise and take the drums. Don’t you pay nothing.
Worm it out of the old tart. Snivel. Do the doleful.”

[¶59] _Mr. Tallboys_ (chanting): “O all ye children of men, curse ye the Lord,
curse Him and vilify Him for ever!”

[¶60] _Charlie_: “What, is Smithy crooked too?”

[¶61] _Mrs. Bendigo_: “I tell you what, girls, I tell you what gets me down,
and that’s to think of my bloody husband snoring under four blankets and
me freezing in this bloody Square. That’s what I can’t stomach. The
unnatural sod!”

[¶62] _Ginger_ (singing): “‘_There_ they go—_in_ their joy——’ Don’t take
that there drum with the cold sausage in it, Kikie.”

[¶63] _Nosy Watson_: “Crooked? _Crooked?_ Why, a corkscrew ’ud look like a
bloody bradawl beside of him! There isn’t one of them double —— sons
of whores in the Flying Squad but ’ud sell his grandmother to the
knackers for two pound ten and then sit on her gravestone eating potato
crisps. The geeing, narking toerag!”

[¶64] _Charlie_: “Perishing tough. ’Ow many convictions you got?”

[¶65] _Ginger_ (singing):

[¶66] “There they go—_in_ their joy—
                   ’_Ap_py girl—_luc_ky boy——”

[¶67] _Nosy Watson_: “Fourteen. You don’t stand no chance with that lot
against you.”

[¶68] _Mrs. Wayne_: “What, don’t he keep you, then?”

[¶69] _Mrs. Bendigo_: “No, I’m married to this one, sod ’im!”

[¶70] _Charlie_: “I got perishing nine myself.”

[¶71] _Mr. Tallboys_ (chanting): “O Ananias, Azarias and Misael, curse ye the
Lord, curse Him and vilify Him for ever!”

[¶72] _Ginger_ (singing):

[¶73] “_There_ they go—_in_ their joy—
                  ’_Ap_py girl—_luc_ky boy—
                  But ’ere am _I-I-I_—
                  Broken—_’a-a-aar_ted!

[¶74] God, I ain’t ’ad a dig in the grave for three days. ’Ow long since you
washed your face, Snouter?”

[¶75] _Mrs. McElligot_: “Oh dear, oh dear! If dat boy don’t come soon wid de
tea me insides’ll dry up like a bloody kippered herring.”

[¶76] _Charlie_: “_You_ can’t sing, none of you. Ought to ’ear Snouter and me
’long towards Christmas time when we pipe up ‘Good King Wenceslas’
outside the boozers. ’Ymns, too. Blokes in the bar weep their perishing
eyes out to ’ear us. ’Member when we tapped twice at the same ’ouse by
mistake, Snouter? Old tart fair tore the innards out of us.”

[¶77] _Mr. Tallboys_ (marching up and down behind an imaginary drum and
singing):

[¶78] “All things vile and damnable,
                   All creatures great and small——”

[¶79] (Big Ben strikes half-past ten.)

[¶80] _Snouter_ (mimicking the clock): “Ding dong, ding dong! Six and a ——
half hours of it! Cripes!”

[¶81] _Ginger_: “Kikie and me knocked off four of them safety-razor blades in
Woolworths’s afternoon. I’ll ’ave a dig in the bleeding fountains
to-morrow if I can bum a bit of soap.”

[¶82] _Deafie_: “When I was a stooard in the P. and O., we used to meet them
black Indians two days out at sea, in them there great canoes as they
call catamarans, catching sea-turtles the size of dinner tables.”

[¶83] _Mrs. Wayne_: “Did you used to be a clergyman, then, sir?”

[¶84] _Mr. Tallboys_ (halting): “After the order of Melchizedec. There is no
question of ’used to be,’ Madam. Once a priest always a priest. Hoc est
corpus hocus pocus. Even though unfrocked—un-Crocked, we call it—and
dog-collar publicly torn off by the bishop of the diocese.”

[¶85] _Ginger_ (singing): “‘_There_ they go—_in_ their joy——’ Thank Christ!
’Ere comes Kikie. Now for the consultation-free!”

[¶86] _Mrs. Bendigo_: “Not before it’s bloody needed.”

[¶87] _Charlie_: “’Ow come they give you the sack, mate? Usual story?
Choirgirls in the family way?”

[¶88] _Mrs. McElligot_: “You’ve took your time, ain’t you, young man? But come
on, let’s have a sup of it before me tongue falls out o’ me bloody
mouth.”

[¶89] _Mrs. Bendigo_: “Shove up, Daddy! You’re sitting on my packet of bloody
sugar.”

[¶90] _Mr. Tallboys_: “Girls is a euphemism. Only the usual flannel-bloomered
hunters of the unmarried clergy. Church hens—altar-dressers and
brass-polishers—spinsters growing bony and desperate. There is a demon
that enters into them at thirty-five.”

[¶91] _The Kike_: “The old bitch wouldn’t give me the hot water. Had to tap a
toff in the street and pay a penny for it.”

[¶92] _Snouter_: “—— likely story! Bin swigging it on the way more likely.”

[¶93] _Daddy_ (emerging from his overcoat): “Drum o’ tea, eh? I could sup a
drum o’ tea.” (Belches slightly.)

[¶94] _Charlie_: “When their bubs get like perishing razor strops? _I_ know.”

[¶95] _Nosy Watson_: “Tea—bloody catlap. Better’n that cocoa in the stir,
though. Lend’s your cup, matie.”

[¶96] _Ginger_: “Jest wait’ll I knock a ’ole in this tin of milk. Shy us a
money or your life, someone.”

[¶97] _Mrs. Bendigo_: “Easy with that bloody sugar! ’Oo paid for it, I sh’d
like to know?”

[¶98] _Mr. Tallboys_: “When their bubs get like razor strops. I thank thee for
that humour. _Pippin’s Weekly_ made quite a feature of the case.
‘Missing Canon’s Sub Rosa Romance. Intimate Revelations.’ And also an
Open Letter in _John Bull_: ‘To a Skunk in Shepherd’s Clothing.’ A
pity—I was marked out for preferment. (To Dorothy) Gaiters in the
family, if you understand me. You would not think, would you, that the
time has been when this unworthy backside dented the plush cushions of a
cathedral stall?”

[¶99] _Charlie_: “’Ere comes Florry. Thought she’d be along soon as we got the
tea going. Got a nose like a perishing vulture for tea, that girl ’as.”

[¶100] _Snouter_: “Ay, always on the tap. (Singing):

[¶101] ‘Tap, tap, tappety tap,
                  I’m a perfec’ devil at that——’”

[¶102] _Mrs. McElligot_: “De poor kid, she ain’t got no sense. Why don’t she go
up to Piccadilly Circus where she’d get her five bob reg’lar? She won’t
do herself no good bummin’ round de Square wid a set of miserable ole
Tobies.”

[¶103] _Dorothy_: “Is that milk all right?”

[¶104] _Ginger_: “All right?” (Applies his mouth to one of the holes in the tin
and blows. A sticky greyish stream dribbles from the other.)

[¶105] _Charlie_: “What luck, Florry? ’Ow ’bout that perishing toff as I see
you get off with just now?”

[¶106] _Dorothy_: “It’s got ‘Not fit for babies’ on it.”

[¶107] _Mrs. Bendigo_: “Well, you ain’t a bloody baby, are you? You can drop
your Buckingham Palace manners, ’ere, dearie.”

[¶108] _Florry_: “Stood me a coffee and a fag—mingy bastard! That tea you got
there, Ginger? You always _was_ my favourite, Ginger dear.”

[¶109] _Mrs. Wayne_: “There’s jest thirteen of us.”

[¶110] _Mr. Tallboys_: “As we are not going to have any dinner you need not
disturb yourself.”

[¶111] _Ginger_: “What-o, ladies and gents! Tea is served. Cups forward,
please!”

[¶112] _The Kike_: “Oh Jeez! You ain’t filled my bloody cup half full!”

[¶113] _Mrs. McElligot_: “Well, here’s luck to us all, an’ a better bloody kip
to-morrow. I’d ha’ took shelter in one o’ dem dere churches meself, only
de b——s won’t let you in if so be as dey t’ink you got de chats on
you.” (Drinks.)

[¶114] _Mrs. Wayne_: “Well, I can’t say as this is exactly the way as I’ve been
_accustomed_ to drinking a cup of tea—but still——” (Drinks.)

[¶115] _Charlie_: “Perishing good cup of tea.” (Drinks.)

[¶116] _Deafie_: “And there was flocks of them there green parakeets in the
coco-nut palms, too.” (Drinks.)

[¶117] _Mr. Tallboys_:

[¶118] “What potions have I drunk of siren tears,
             Distilled from limbecs foul as Hell within!”

[¶119] (Drinks.)

[¶120] _Snouter_: “Last we’ll get till five in the —— morning.” (Drinks.)

[¶121] (Florry produces a broken shop-made cigarette from her stocking, and
cadges a match. The men, except Daddy, Deafie and Mr. Tallboys, roll
cigarettes from picked-up fag-ends. The red ends glow through the misty
twilight, like a crooked constellation, as the smokers sprawl on the
bench, the ground or the slope of the parapet.)

[¶122] _Mrs. Wayne_: “Well, there now! A nice cup of tea do seem to warm you
up, don’t it, now? Not but what I don’t feel it a bit different, as you
might say, not having no nice clean table-cloth like I’ve been
accustomed to, and the beautiful china tea service as our mother used to
have; and always, of course, the very best tea as money could buy—real
Pekoe Points at two and nine a pound. . . .”

[¶123] _Ginger_ (singing):

[¶124] “_There_ they go—_in_ their joy—
                  ’_Appy_ girl—_lucky_ boy——”

[¶125] _Mr. Tallboys_ (singing, to the tune of “Deutschland, Deutschland uber
alles”): “Keep the aspidistra flying——”

[¶126] _Charlie_: “’Ow long you two kids been in Smoke?”

[¶127] _Snouter_: “I’m going to give them boozers such a doing to-morrow as
they won’t know if they’re on their ’eads or their —— ’eels. I’ll ’ave
my ’alf dollar if I ’ave to ’old them upside down and —— shake ’em.”

[¶128] _Ginger_: “Three days. We come down from York—skippering ’alf the way.
God, wasn’t it jest about bleeding nine carat gold, too!”

[¶129] _Florry_: “Got any more tea there, Ginger dear? Well, so long, folks.
See you all at Wilkins’s to-morrow morning.”

[¶130] _Mrs. Bendigo_: “Thieving little tart! Swallers ’er tea and then jacks
off without so much as a thank you. Can’t waste a bloody moment.”

[¶131] _Mrs. McElligot_: “Cold? Ay, I b’lieve you. Skipperin’ in de long grass
wid no blanket an’ de bloody dew fit to drown you, an’ den can’t get
your bloody fire goin’ in de mornin’, an’ got to tap de milkman ’fore
you can make yourself a drum o’ tea. I’ve had some’v it when me and
Michael was on de toby.”

[¶132] _Mrs. Bendigo_: “Even go with blackies and Chinamen she will, the dirty
little cow.”

[¶133] _Dorothy_: “How much does she get each time?”

[¶134] _Snouter_: “Tanner.”

[¶135] _Dorothy_: “_Sixpence?_”

[¶136] _Charlie_: “Bet your life. Do it for a perishing fag along towards
morning.”

[¶137] _Mrs. McElligot_: “I never took less’n a shilling, never.”

[¶138] _Ginger_: “Kikie and me skippered in a boneyard one night. Woke up in
the morning and found I was lying on a bleeding gravestone.”

[¶139] _The Kike_: “She ain’t half got the crabs on her, too.”

[¶140] _Mrs. McElligot_: “Michael an’ me skippered in a pigsty once. We was
just a-creepin’ in, when, ‘Holy Mary!’ says Michael, ‘dere’s a pig in
here!’ ‘Pig be ——!’ I says, ‘he’ll keep us warm anyway.’ So in we
goes, an’ dere was an old sow lay on her side snorin’ like a traction
engine. I creeps up agen her an’ puts me arms round her, an’ begod she
kept me warm all night. I’ve skippered worse.”

[¶141] _Deafie_ (singing): “_With_ my willy willy——”

[¶142] _Charlie_: “Don’t ole Deafie keep it up? Sets up a kind of a ’umming
inside of ’im, ’e says.”

[¶143] _Daddy_: “When I was a boy we didn’t live on this ’ere bread and marg.
and tea and suchlike trash. Good solid tommy we ’ad in them days. Beef
stoo. Black pudden. Bacon dumpling. Pig’s ’ead. Fed like a fighting-cock
on a tanner a day. And now fifty year I’ve ’ad of it on the toby.
Spud-grabbing, pea-picking, lambing, turnip-topping—everythink. And
sleeping in wet straw and not once in a year you don’t fill your guts
right full. Well——!” (Retires within his coat.)

[¶144] _Mrs. McElligot_: “But he was real bold, Michael was. He’d go in
anywhere. Many’s de time we’ve broke into an empty house an’ kipped in
de best bed. ‘Other people got homes,’ he’d say. ‘Why shouldn’t we
have’m too?’”

[¶145] _Ginger_ (singing): “But I’m dan-cing with tears—in my eyes——”

[¶146] _Mr. Tallboys_ (to himself): “Absurnet haeres Caecuba dignior! To think
that there were twenty-one bottles of Clos St. Jacques 1911 in my cellar
still, that night when the baby was born and I left for London on the
milk train! . . .”

[¶147] _Mrs. Wayne_: “And as for the _wreaths_ we ’ad sent us when our mother
died—well, you wouldn’t believe! ’Uge, they was. . . .”

[¶148] _Mrs. Bendigo_: “If I ’ad my time over again I’d marry for bloody
money.”

[¶149] _Ginger_ (singing):

[¶150] “But I’m dan-cing with tears—in my eyes——
             Cos the girl—in my arms—isn’t you-o-ou!”

[¶151] _Nosy Watson_: “Some of you lot think you got a bloody lot to howl
about, don’t you? What about a poor sod like me? You wasn’t narked into
the stir when you was eighteen year old, was you?”

[¶152] _The Kike_: “Oh Je-e-e_eeze_!”

[¶153] _Charlie_: “Ginger, you can’t sing no more’n a perishing tomcat with the
guts-ache. Just you listen to me. I’ll give y’a treat. (Singing): Jesu,
lover _of_ my soul——”

[¶154] _Mr. Tallboys_ (to himself): “Et ego in Crockford. . . . With Bishops
and Archbishops and with all the Company of Heaven. . . .”

[¶155] _Nosy Watson_: “D’you know how I got in the stir the first time? Narked
by my own sister—yes, my own bloody sister! My sister’s a cow if ever
there was one. She got married to a religious maniac—he’s so bloody
religious that she’s got fifteen kids now—well, it was him put her up
to narking me. But I got back on ’em, _I_ can tell you. First thing I
done when I come out of the stir, I buys a hammer and goes round to my
sister’s house, and smashed her piano to bloody matchwood. ‘There!’ I
says, ‘that’s what you get for narking _me_! You nosing mare!’ I says.”

[¶156] _Dorothy_: “This cold, this cold! I don’t know whether my feet are there
or not.”

[¶157] _Mrs. McElligot_: “Bloody tea don’t warm you for long, do it? I’m fair
froze meself.”

[¶158] _Mr. Tallboys_ (to himself): “My curate days, my curate days! My
fancywork bazaars and Morris-dances in aid of on the village green, my
lectures to the Mothers’ Union—missionary work in Western China with
fourteen magic lantern slides! My Boys’ Cricket Club, teetotallers only,
my confirmation classes—purity lecture once monthly in the Parish
Hall—my Boy Scout orgies! The Wolf Cubs will deliver the Grand Howl.
Household Hints for the Parish Magazine, ‘Discarded fountain-pen fillers
can be used as enemas for canaries. . . .”

[¶159] _Charlie_ (singing): “Jesu, lover _of_ my soul——”

[¶160] _Ginger_: “’Ere comes the bleeding flattie! Get up off the ground, all
of you.” (Daddy emerges from his overcoat.)

[¶161] _The policeman_ (shaking the sleepers on the next bench): “Now then,
wake up, wake up! Rouse up, you! Got to go home if you want to sleep.
This isn’t a common lodging house. Get up, there!” etc., etc.

[¶162] _Mrs. Bendigo_: “It’s that nosy young sod as wants promotion. Wouldn’t
let you bloody breathe if ’e ’ad ’is way.”

[¶163] _Charlie_ (_singing_):

[¶164] “Jesu, lover _of_ my soul,
                     Let me _to_ Thy bosom fly——”

[¶165] _The policeman_: “Now then, _you_! What you think _this_ is? Baptist
prayer meeting? (To the Kike) Up you get, and look sharp about it!”

[¶166] _Charlie_: “I can’t ’elp it, sergeant. It’s my toonful nature. It comes
out of me natural-like.”

[¶167] _The policeman_ (shaking Mrs. Bendigo): “Wake up, mother, wake up!”

[¶168] _Mrs. Bendigo_: “Mother! _Mother_, is it? Well, if I am a mother, thank
God I ain’t got a bloody son like you! And I’ll tell you another little
secret, constable. Next time I want a man’s fat ’ands feeling round the
back of my neck, I won’t ask _you_ to do it. I’ll ’ave someone with a
bit more sex-appeal.”

[¶169] _The policeman_: “Now then, now then! No call to get abusive, you know.
We got our orders to carry out.” (Exit majestically.)

[¶170] _Snouter_ (sotto voce): “—— off, you —— son of a ——!”

[¶171] _Charlie_ (singing):

[¶172] “While the gathering waters roll,
                 While the tempest still is ’igh!

[¶173] Sung bass in the choir my last two years in Dartmoor, I did.”

[¶174] _Mrs. Bendigo_: “I’ll bloody mother ’im! (Shouting after the policeman)
‘I! Why don’t you get after them bloody cat burglars ’stead of coming
nosing round a respectable married woman?”

[¶175] _Ginger_: “Kip down, blokes. ’E’s jacked.” (Daddy retires within his
coat.)

[¶176] _Nosy Watson_: “Wassit like in Dartmoor now? D’they give you jam now?”

[¶177] _Mrs. Wayne_: “Of course, you can see as they couldn’t reely allow
people to sleep in the streets—I mean, it wouldn’t be quite nice—and
then you’ve got to remember as it’d be encouraging of all the people as
haven’t got homes of their own—the kind of riff-raff, if you take my
meaning. . . .”

[¶178] _Mr. Tallboys_ (to himself): “Happy days, happy days! Outings with the
Girl Guides in Epping Forest—hired brake and sleek roan horses, and I
on the box in my grey flannel suit, speckled straw hat and discreet
layman’s neck-tie. Buns and ginger pop under the green elms. Twenty Girl
Guides pious yet susceptible frisking in the breast-high bracken, and I
a happy curate sporting among them, in loco parentis pinching the girls’
backsides. . . .”

[¶179] _Mrs. McElligot_: “Well, you may talk about kippin’ down, but begod dere
won’t be much sleep for my poor ole bloody bones to-night. I can’t
skipper it now de way me and Michael used to.”

[¶180] _Charlie_: “Not jam. Gets cheese, though, twice a week.”

[¶181] _The Kike_: “Oh Jeez! I can’t stand it no longer. I going down to the
M.A.B.”

[¶182] (Dorothy stands up, and then, her knees having stiffened with the cold,
almost falls.)

[¶183] _Ginger_: “Only send you to the bleeding Labour Home. What you say we
all go up to Covent Garden tomorrow morning? Bum a few pears if we get
there early enough.”

[¶184] _Charlie_: “I’ve ’ad my perishing bellyful of Dartmoor, b’lieve me.
Forty on us went through ’ell for getting off with the ole women down on
the allotments. Ole trots seventy years old they was—spud-grabbers.
Didn’t we cop it just! Bread and water, chained to the wall—perishing
near murdered us.”

[¶185] _Mrs. Bendigo_: “No fear! Not while my bloody husband’s there. One black
eye in a week’s enough for me, thank you.”

[¶186] _Mr. Tallboys_ (chanting, reminiscently): “As for our harps, we hanged
them up, upon the willow trees of Babylon! . . .”

[¶187] _Mrs. McElligot_: “Hold up, kiddie! Stamp your feet an’ get de blood
back into ’m. I’ll take y’a walk up to Paul’s in a coupla minutes.”

[¶188] _Deafie_ (singing): “_With_ my willy willy——”

[¶189] (Big Ben strikes eleven.)

[¶190] _Snouter_: “Six more —— hours! Cripes!”

[¶191] (An hour passes. Big Ben stops striking. The mist thins and the cold
increases. A grubby-faced moon is seen sneaking among the clouds of the
southern sky. A dozen hardened old men remain on the benches, and still
contrive to sleep, doubled up and hidden in their greatcoats.
Occasionally they groan in their sleep. The others set out in all
directions, intending to walk all night and so keep their blood flowing,
but nearly all of them have drifted back to the Square by midnight. A
new policeman comes on duty. He strolls through the Square at intervals
of half an hour, scrutinising the faces of the sleepers but letting them
alone when he has made sure that they are only asleep and not dead.
Round each bench revolves a knot of people who take it in turns to sit
down and are driven to their feet by the cold after a few minutes.
Ginger and Charlie fill two drums at the fountains and set out in the
desperate hope of boiling some tea over the navvies’ clinker fire in
Chandos Street; but a policeman is warming himself at the fire, and
orders them away. The Kike suddenly vanishes, probably to beg a bed at
the M.A.B. Towards one o’clock a rumour goes round that a lady is
distributing hot coffee, ham sandwiches and packets of cigarettes under
Charing Cross Bridge; there is a rush to the spot, but the rumour turns
out to be unfounded. As the Square fills again the ceaseless changing of
places upon the benches quickens until it is like a game of musical
chairs. Sitting down, with one’s hands under one’s armpits, it is
possible to get into a kind of sleep, or doze, for two or three minutes
on end. In this state, enormous ages seem to pass. One sinks into
complex, troubling dreams which leave one conscious of one’s
surroundings and of the bitter cold. The night is growing clearer and
colder every minute. There is a chorus of varying sound—groans, curses,
bursts of laughter and singing, and through them all the uncontrollable
chattering of teeth.)

[¶192] _Mr. Tallboys_ (chanting): “I am poured out like water, and all my bones
are out of joint! . . .”

[¶193] _Mrs. McElligot_: “Ellen an’ me bin wanderin’ round de City dis two
hours. Begod it’s like a bloody tomb wid dem great lamps glarin’ down on
you an’ not a soul stirrin’ excep’ de flatties strollin’ two an’ two.”

[¶194] _Snouter_: “Five past —— one and I ain’t ’ad a bite since dinner!
Course it ’ad to ’appen to us on a —— night like this!”

[¶195] _Mr. Tallboys_: “A drinking night I should have called it. But every man
to his taste. (Chanting) ‘My strength is dried like a potsherd, and my
tongue cleaveth to my gums!’ . . .”

[¶196] _Charlie_: “Say, what you think? Nosy and me done a smash jest now. Nosy
sees a tobacconist’s show-case full of them fancy boxes of Gold Flake,
and ’e says, ‘By cripes I’m going to ’ave some of them fags if they give
me a perishing stretch for it!’ ’e says. So ’e wraps ’is scarf round ’is
’and, and we waits till there’s a perishing great van passing as’ll
drown the noise, and then Nosy lets fly—biff! We nipped a dozen packets
of fags, and then I bet you didn’t see our a——s for dust. And when we
gets round the corner and opens them, there wasn’t no perishing fags
inside! Perishing dummy boxes. I ’ad to laugh.”

[¶197] _Dorothy_: “My knees are giving way. I can’t stand up much longer.”

[¶198] _Mrs. Bendigo_: “Oh, the sod, the sod! To turn a woman out of doors on a
night like bloody this! You wait’ll I get ’im drunk o’ Saturday night
and ’e can’t ’it back. I’ll mash ’im to bloody shin of beef, I will.
’E’ll look like two pennorth of pieces after I’ve swiped ’im with the
bloody flat-iron.”

[¶199] _Mrs. McElligot_: “Here, make room’n let de kid sit down. Press up agen
ole Daddy, dear. Put his arm round you. He’s chatty, but he’ll keep you
warm.”

[¶200] _Ginger_ (double marking time): “Stamp your feet on the ground—only
bleeding thing to do. Strike up a song, someone, and less all stamp our
bleeding feet in time to it.”

[¶201] _Daddy_ (waking and emerging): “Wassat?” (Still half asleep, he lets his
head fall back, with mouth open and Adam’s apple protruding from his
withered throat like the blade of a tomahawk.)

[¶202] _Mrs. Bendigo_: “There’s women what if they’d stood what I’ve stood,
they’d ’ave put spirits of salts in ’is cup of bloody tea.”

[¶203] _Mr. Tallboys_ (beating an imaginary drum and singing): “Onward, heathen
so-oldiers——”

[¶204] _Mrs. Wayne_: “Well, reely now! If any of us’d ever of thought, in the
dear old days when we used to sit round our own Silkstone coal fire,
with the kettle on the hob and a nice dish of toasted crumpets from the
baker’s over the way . . .” (The chattering of her teeth silences her.)

[¶205] _Charlie_: “No perishing church trap now, matie. I’ll give y’a bit of
smut—something as we can perishing dance to. You listen t’me.”

[¶206] _Mrs. McElligot_: “Don’t you get talkin’ about crumpets, Missis. Me
bloody belly’s rubbing ’agen me backbone already.”

[¶207] (Charlie draws himself up, clears his throat, and in an enormous voice
roars out a song entitled “Rollicking Bill the Sailor.” A laugh that is
partly a shudder bursts from the people on the bench. They sing the song
through again, with increasing volume of noise, stamping and clapping in
time. Those sitting down, packed elbow to elbow, sway grotesquely from
side to side, working their feet as though stamping on the pedals of a
harmonium. Even Mrs. Wayne joins in after a moment, laughing in spite of
herself. They are all laughing, though with chattering teeth. Mr.
Tallboys marches up and down behind his vast swag belly, pretending to
carry a banner or crozier in front of him. The night is now quite clear,
and an icy wind comes shuddering at intervals through the Square. The
stamping and clapping rise to a kind of frenzy as the people feel the
deadly cold penetrate to their bones. Then the policeman is seen
wandering into the Square from the eastern end, and the singing ceases
abruptly.)

[¶208] _Charlie_: “There! You can’t say as a bit of music don’t warm you up.”

[¶209] _Mrs. Bendigo_: “This bloody wind! And I ain’t even got any drawers on,
the bastard kicked me out in such a ’urry.”

[¶210] _Mrs. McElligot_: “Well, glory be to Jesus, ’twon’t be long before dat
dere church in de Gray’s Inn Road opens up for de winter. Dey gives you
a roof over your head of a night, ’t any rate.”

[¶211] _The policeman_: “Now then, now _then_! D’you think this is the time of
night to begin singing like a blooming bear garden? I shall have to send
you back to your homes if you can’t keep quiet.”

[¶212] _Snouter_ (sotto voce): “You —— son of a ——!”

[¶213] _Ginger_: “Yes—they lets you kip on the bleeding stone floor with three
newspaper posters ’stead of blankets. Might as well be in the Square and
’ave done with it. God, I wish I was in the bleeding spike.”

[¶214] _Mrs. McElligot_: “Still, you gets a cup of Horlicks an’ two slices. I
bin glad to kip dere often enough.”

[¶215] _Mr. Tallboys_ (chanting): “I was glad when they said unto me, We will
go into the house of the Lord! . . .”

[¶216] _Dorothy_ (starting up): “Oh, this cold, this cold! I don’t know whether
it’s worse when you’re sitting down or when you’re standing up. Oh, how
can you all stand it? Surely you don’t have to do this every night of
your lives?”

[¶217] _Mrs. Wayne_: “You musn’t think, dearie, as there isn’t some of us
wasn’t brought up respectable.”

[¶218] _Charlie_ (singing): “Cheer up, cully, you’ll soon be dead! Brrh!
Perishing Jesus! Ain’t my fish-hooks blue!” (Double marks time and beats
his arms against his sides.)

[¶219] _Dorothy_: “Oh, but how can you stand it? How can you go on like this,
night after night, year after year? It’s not possible that people can
live so! It’s so absurd that one wouldn’t believe it if one didn’t know
it was true. It’s impossible!”

[¶220] _Snouter_: “—— possible if you ask me.”

[¶221] _Mr. Tallboys_ (stage curate-wise): “With God, all things are possible.”

[¶222] (Dorothy sinks back on to the bench, her knees still being unsteady.)

[¶223] _Charlie_: “Well, it’s jest on ’ar-parse one. Either we got to get
moving, or else make a pyramid on that perishing bench. Unless we want
to perishing turn up our toes. ’Oo’s for a little constitootional up to
the Tower of London?”

[¶224] _Mrs. McElligot_: ”’Twon’t be me dat’ll walk another step to-night. Me
bloody legs’ve given out on me.”

[¶225] _Ginger_: “What-o for the pyramid! This is a bit too bleeding
nine-day-old for me. Less scrum into that bench—beg pardon, Ma!”

[¶226] _Daddy_ (sleepily): “Wassa game? Can’t a man get a bit of kip but what
you must come worriting ’im and shaking of ’im?”

[¶227] _Charlie_: “That’s the stuff! Shove in! Shift yourself, Daddy, and make
room for my little sit-me-down. Get one atop of each other. That’s
right. Never mind the chats. Jam all together like pilchards in a
perishing tin.”

[¶228] _Mrs. Wayne_: “Here! I didn’t ask you to sit on my lap, young man!”

[¶229] _Ginger_: “Sit on mine, then, mother—’sall the same. What-o! First bit
of stuff I’ve ’ad my arm round since Easter.”

[¶230] (They pile themselves in a monstrous shapeless clot, men and women
clinging indiscriminately together, like a bunch of toads at spawning
time. There is a writhing movement as the heap settles down, and a sour
stench of clothes diffuses itself. Only Mr. Tallboys remains marching up
and down.)

[¶231] _Mr. Tallboys_ (declaiming): “O ye nights and days, ye light and
darkness, ye lightnings and clouds, curse ye the Lord!”

[¶232] (Deafie, someone having sat on his diaphragm, utters a strange,
unreproducible sound.)

[¶233] _Mrs. Bendigo_: “Get off my bad leg, can’t you? What you think I am?
Bloody drawing-room sofa?”

[¶234] _Charlie_: “Don’t ole Daddy stink when you get up agen ’im?”

[¶235] _Ginger_: “Bleeding Bank ’oliday for the chats this’ll be.”

[¶236] _Dorothy_: “Oh, God, God!”

[¶237] _Mr. Tallboys_ (halting): “Why call on God, you puling deathbed
penitent? Stick to your guns and call on the Devil as I do. Hail to
thee, Lucifer, Prince of the Air! (Singing to the tune of ‘Holy, holy,
holy’): Incubi and Succubi, falling down before Thee! . . .”

[¶238] _Mrs. Bendigo_: “Oh, shut up, you blarsphemous old sod! ’E’s too bloody
fat to feel the cold, that’s what’s wrong with ’im.”

[¶239] _Charlie_: “Nice soft be’ind you got, Ma. Keep an eye out for the
perishing flattie, Ginger.”

[¶240] _Mr. Tallboys_: “Maledicite, omnia opera! The Blask Mass! Why not? Once
a priest always a priest. Hand me a chunk of toke and I will work the
miracle. Sulphur candles, Lord’s Prayer backwards, crucifix upside down.
(To Dorothy) If we had a black he-goat you would come in useful.”

[¶241] (The animal heat of the piled bodies has already made itself felt. A
drowsiness is descending upon everyone.)

[¶242] _Mrs. Wayne_: “You mustn’t think as I’m _accustomed_ to sitting on a
gentleman’s knee, you know . . .”

[¶243] _Mrs. McElligot_ (drowsily): “I took my sacraments reg’lar till de
bloody priest wouldn’t give me absolution along o’ my Michael. De ole
get, de ole getsie! . . .”

[¶244] _Mr. Tallboys_ (striking an attitude): “Per aquam sacratam quam nunc
spargo, signumque crucis quod nunc facio . . .”

[¶245] _Ginger_: “’Oo’s got a fill of ’ard-up? I’ve smoked my last bleeding
fag-end.”

[¶246] _Mr. Tallboys_ (as at the altar): “Dearly beloved brethren we are
gathered together in the sight of God for the solemnisation of unholy
blasphemy. He has afflicted us with dirt and cold, with hunger and
solitude, with the pox and the itch, with the headlouse and the
crablouse. Our food is damp crusts and slimy meat-scraps handed out in
packets from hotel doorways. Our pleasure is stewed tea and sawdust
cakes bolted in reeking cellars, bar-rinsings and spittle of common ale,
the embrace of toothless hags. Our destiny is the pauper’s grave,
twenty-five deep in deal coffins, the kip-house of underground. It is
very meet, right and our bounden duty at all times and in all places to
curse Him and revile Him. Therefore with Demons and Archdemons,” etc.,
etc., etc.

[¶247] _Mrs. McElligot_ (drowsily): “By holy Jesus, I’m half asleep right now,
only some b——’s lyin’ across me legs an crushin’ ’em.”

[¶248] _Mr. Tallboys_: “Amen. Evil from us deliver, but temptation into not us
lead,” etc., etc., etc.

[¶249] (As he reaches the first word of the prayer he tears the consecrated
bread across. The blood runs out of it. There is a rolling sound, as of
thunder, and the landscape changes. Dorothy’s feet are very cold.
Monstrous winged shapes of Demons and Archdemons are dimly visible,
moving to and fro. Something, beak or claw, closes upon Dorothy’s
shoulder, reminding her that her feet and hands are aching with cold.)

[¶250] _The policeman_ (shaking Dorothy by the shoulder): “Wake up, now, wake
up, wake up! Haven’t you got an overcoat? You’re as white as death.
Don’t you know better than to let yourself sprawl about in the cold like
that?”

[¶251] (Dorothy finds that she is stiff with cold. The sky is now quite clear,
with gritty little stars twinkling like electric lamps enormously
remote. The pyramid has unrolled itself.)

[¶252] _Mrs. McElligot_: “De poor kid, she ain’t used to roughin’ it de way us
others are.”

[¶253] _Ginger_ (beating his arms): “Brr! Woo! ’Taters in the bleeding mould!”

[¶254] _Mrs. Wayne_: “She’s a lady born and bred.”

[¶255] _The policeman_: “Is that so?—See here, Miss, you best come down to the
M.A.B. with me. They’ll give you a bed all right. Anyone can see with
half an eye as you’re a cut above these others here.”

[¶256] _Mrs. Bendigo_: “Thank you, constable, _thank_ you! ’Ear that, girls? ‘A
cut above us,’ ’e says. Nice, ain’t it? (To the policeman) Proper bloody
Ascot swell yourself, ain’t you?”

[¶257] _Dorothy_: “No, no! Leave me. I’d rather stay here.”

[¶258] _The policeman_: “Well, please yourself. You looked real bad just now.
I’ll be along later and take a look at you.” (Moves off doubtfully.)

[¶259] _Charlie_: “Wait’ll the perisher’s round the corner and then pile up
agen. Only perishing way we’ll keep warm.”

[¶260] _Mrs. McElligot_: “Come on, kid. Get underneath an’ let’m warm you.”

[¶261] _Snouter_: “Ten minutes to —— two. Can’t last for ever, I s’pose.”

[¶262] _Mr. Tallboys_ (chanting): “I am poured out like water, and all my bones
are out of joint: My heart also in the midst of my body is like unto
melting wax! . . .”

[¶263] (Once more the people pile themselves on the bench. But the temperature
is now not many degrees above freezing-point, and the wind is blowing
more cuttingly. The people wriggle their wind-nipped faces into the heap
like sucking pigs struggling for their mother’s teats. One’s interludes
of sleep shrink to a few seconds, and one’s dreams grow more monstrous,
troubling and undreamlike. There are times when the nine people are
talking almost normally, times when they can even laugh at their
situation, and times when they press themselves together in a kind of
frenzy, with deep groans of pain. Mr. Tallboys suddenly becomes
exhausted and his monologue degenerates into a stream of nonsense. He
drops his vast bulk on top of the others, almost suffocating them. The
heap rolls apart. Some remain on the bench, some slide to the ground and
collapse against the parapet or against the others’ knees. The policeman
enters the Square and orders those on the ground to their feet. They get
up, and collapse again the moment he is gone. There is no sound from the
ten people save of snores that are partly groans. Their heads nod like
those of jointed porcelain Chinamen as they fall asleep and re-awake as
rhythmically as the ticking of a clock. Three strikes somewhere. A voice
yells like a trumpet from the eastern end of the Square: “Boys! Up you
get! The noospapersis come!”)

[¶264] _Charlie_ (starting from his sleep): “The perishing papers! C’m on,
Ginger! Run like Hell!”

[¶265] (They run, or shamble, as fast as they can to the corner of the Square,
where three youths are distributing surplus posters given away in
charity by the morning newspapers. Charlie and Ginger come back with a
thick wad of posters. The five largest men now jam themselves together
on the bench, Deafie and the four women sitting across their knees;
then, with infinite difficulty (as it has to be done from the inside),
they wrap themselves in a monstrous cocoon of paper, several sheets
thick, tucking the loose ends into their necks or breasts or between
their shoulders and the back of the bench. Finally nothing is uncovered
save their heads and the lower part of their legs. For their heads they
fashion hoods of paper. The paper constantly comes loose and lets in
cold shafts of wind, but it is now possible to sleep for as much as five
minutes consecutively. At this time—between three and five in the
morning—it is customary with the police not to disturb the Square
sleepers. A measure of warmth steals through everyone and extends even
to their feet. There is some furtive fondling of the women under cover
of the paper. Dorothy is too far gone to care.

[¶266] By a quarter past four the paper is all crumpled and torn to nothing,
and it is far too cold to remain sitting down. The people get up, swear,
find their legs somewhat rested, and begin to slouch to and fro in
couples, frequently halting from mere lassitude. Every belly is now
contorted with hunger. Ginger’s tin of condensed milk is torn open and
the contents devoured, everyone dipping their fingers into it and
licking them. Those who have no money at all leave the Square for the
Green Park, where they will be undisturbed till seven. Those who can
command even a halfpenny make for Wilkins’s café not far from the
Charing Cross Road. It is known that the café will not open till five
o’clock; nevertheless, a crowd is waiting outside the door by twenty to
five.)

[¶267] _Mrs. McElligot_: “Got your halfpenny, dearie? Dey won’t let more’n four
of us in on one cup o’ tea, de stingy ole gets!”

[¶268] _Mr. Tallboys_ (singing): “The roseate hu-ues of early da-awn—”

[¶269] _Ginger_: “God, that bit of sleep we ’ad under the newspapers done me
some good. (Singing): But I’m dan-cing with tears—in my eyes——”

[¶270] _Charlie_: “Oh, boys, boys! Look through that perishing window, will
you? Look at the ’eat steaming down the window pane! Look at the
tea-urns jest on the boil, and them great piles of ’ot toast and ’am
sandwiches, and them there sausages sizzling in the pan! Don’t it make
your belly turn perishing summersaults to see ’em?”

[¶271] _Dorothy_: “I’ve got a penny. I can’t get a cup of tea for that, can I?”

[¶272] _Snouter_: “—— lot of sausages we’ll get this morning with fourpence
between us. ’Alf a cup of tea and a —— doughnut more likely. There’s a
breakfus’ for you!”

[¶273] _Mrs. McElligot_: “You don’t need buy a cup o’ tea all to yourself. I
got a halfpenny an’ so’s Daddy, an’ we’ll put’m to your penny an’ have a
cup between de t’ree of us. He’s got sores on his lip, but Hell! who
cares? Drink near de handle an’ dere’s no harm done.”

[¶274] (A quarter to five strikes.)

[¶275] _Mrs. Bendigo_: “I’d bet a dollar my ole man’s got a bit of ’addock to
’is breakfast. I ’ope it bloody chokes ’im.”

[¶276] _Ginger_ (singing): “But I’m dan-cing with tears—in my eyes——”

[¶277] _Mr. Tallboys_ (singing): “Early in the morning my song shall rise to
Thee!”

[¶278] _Mrs. McElligot_: “You gets a bit o’ kip in dis place, dat’s one
comfort. Dey lets you sleep wid your head on de table till seven
o’clock. It’s a bloody godsend to us Square Tobies.”

[¶279] _Charlie_ (slavering like a dog): “Sausages! Perishing sausages! Welsh
rabbit! ’Ot dripping toast! And a rumpsteak two inches thick with chips
and a pint of Ole Burton! Oh, perishing Jesus!” (He bounds forward,
pushes his way through the crowd and rattles the handle of the glass
door. The whole crowd of people, about forty strong, surge forward and
attempt to storm the door, which is stoutly held within by Mr. Wilkins,
the proprietor of the café. He menaces them through the glass. Some
press their breasts and faces against the window as though warming
themselves. With a whoop and a rush Florry and four other girls,
comparatively fresh from having spent part of the night in bed, debouch
from a neighbouring alley, accompanied by a gang of youths in blue
suits. They hurl themselves upon the rear of the crowd with such
momentum that the door is almost broken. Mr. Wilkins pulls it furiously
open and shoves the leaders back. A fume of sausages, kippers, coffee
and hot bread streams into the outer cold.)

[¶280] _Youths’ voices from the rear_: “Why can’t he —— open before five?
We’re starving for our —— tea! Ram the —— door in!” etc., etc.

[¶281] _Mr. Wilkins_: “Get out! Get out, the lot of you! Or by God not one of
you comes in this morning!”

[¶282] _Girls’ voices from the rear_: “Mis-ter Wil-kins! Mis-ter Wil-kins! Be a
sport and let us in! I’ll give y’a kiss all free for nothing. _Be_ a
sport now!” etc., etc.

[¶283] _Mr. Wilkins_: “Get on out of it! We don’t open before five, and you
know it.” (Slams the door.)

[¶284] _Mrs. McElligot_: “Oh, holy Jesus, if dis ain’t de longest ten minutes
o’ de whole bloody night! Well, I’ll give me poor ole legs a rest,
anyway.” (Squats on her heels coal-miner-fashion. Many others do the
same.)

[¶285] _Ginger_: “’Oo’s got a ’alfpenny? I’m ripe to go fifty-fifty on a
doughnut.”

[¶286] _Youths’ voices_ (imitating military music, then singing):

[¶287] “‘——!’ was all the band could play;
                ‘——! ——!’ And the same to you!”

[¶288] _Dorothy_ (to Mrs. McElligot): “Look at us all! Just look at us! What
clothes! What faces!”

[¶289] _Mrs. Bendigo_: “You’re no Greta Garbo yourself, if you don’t mind my
mentioning it.”

[¶290] _Mrs. Wayne_: “Well, now, the time _do_ seem to pass slowly when you’re
waiting for a nice cup of tea, don’t it now?”

[¶291] _Mr. Tallboys_ (chanting): “For our soul is brought low, even unto the
dust: our belly cleaveth unto the ground!’

[¶292] _Charlie_: “Kippers! Perishing piles of ’em! I can smell ’em through the
perishing glass.”

[¶293] _Ginger_ (singing):

[¶294] “But I’m dan-cing with tears—in my eyes—
              Cos the girl—in my arms—isn’t you-o-ou!”

[¶295] (Much time passes. Five strikes. Intolerable ages seem to pass. Then the
door is suddenly wrenched open and the people stampede in to fight for
the corner seats. Almost swooning in the hot air, they fling themselves
down and sprawl across the tables, drinking in the heat and the smell of
food through all their pores.)

[¶296] _Mr. Wilkins_: “Now then, all! You know the rules, I s’pose. No
hokey-pokey this morning! Sleep till seven if you like, but if I see any
man asleep after that, out he goes on his neck. Get busy with that tea,
girls!”

[¶297] _A deafening chorus of yells_: “Two teas ’ere! Large tea and a doughnut
between us four! Kippers! Mis-ter Wil-kins! ’Ow much them sausages? Two
slices! Mis-ter Wil-kins! Got any fag papers? Kipp-_ers_!” etc., etc.

[¶298] _Mr. Wilkins_: “Shut up, shut up! Stop that hollering or I don’t serve
any of you.”

[¶299] _Mrs. McElligot_: “D’you feel de blood runnin’ back into your toes,
dearie?”

[¶300] _Mrs. Wayne_: “He do speak rough to you, don’t he? Not what I’d call a
reely gentlemanly kind of man.”

[¶301] _Snouter_: “This is —— Starvation Corner, this is. Cripes! Couldn’t I
do a couple of them sausages!”

[¶302] _The tarts_ (in chorus): “Kippers ’ere! ’Urry up with them kippers!
Mis-ter Wil-kins! Kippers all round! _And_ a doughnut!”

[¶303] _Charlie_: “Not ’alf! Got to fill up on the smell of ’em this morning.
Sooner be ’ere than on the perishing Square, _all_ the same.”

[¶304] _Ginger_: “’Ere, Deafie! You’ve ’ad your ’alf! Gimme me that bleeding
cup.”

[¶305] _Mr. Tallboys_ (chanting): “Then was our mouth filled with laughter, and
our tongue with joy! . . .”

[¶306] _Mrs. McElligot_: “Begod I’m half asleep already. It’s de heat o’ de
room as does it.”

[¶307] _Mr. Wilkins_: “Stop that singing there! You know the rules.”

[¶308] _The tarts_ (in chorus): “Kipp-_ers_!”

[¶309] _Snouter_: “—— doughnuts! Cold prog! It turns my belly sick.”

[¶310] _Daddy_: “Even the tea they give you ain’t no more than water with a bit
of dust in it.” (Belches.)

[¶311] _Charlie_: “Bes’ thing—’ave a bit of shut-eye and forget about it.
Dream about perishing cut off the joint and two veg. Less get our ’eads
on the table and pack up comfortable.”

[¶312] _Mrs. McElligot_: “Lean up agen me shoulder, dearie. I’ve got more flesh
on me bones’n what you have.”

[¶313] _Ginger_: “I’d give a tanner for a bleeding fag, if ’ad a bleeding
tanner.”

[¶314] _Charlie_: “Pack up. Get your ’ead agenst mine, Snouter. That’s right.
Jesus, won’t I perishing sleep!”

[¶315] (A dish of smoking kippers is borne past to the tarts’ table.)

[¶316] _Snouter_ (drowsily): “More —— kippers. Wonder ’ow many times she’s
bin on ’er back to pay for that lot.”

[¶317] _Mrs. McElligot_ (half asleep): “’Twas a pity, ’twas a real pity, when
Michael went off on his jack an’ left me wid de bloody baby an’
all. . . .”

[¶318] _Mrs. Bendigo_ (furiously, following the dish of kippers with accusing
finger): “Look at that, girls! Look at that! _Kippers!_ Don’t it make
you bloody wild? _We_ don’t get kippers for breakfast, do we, girls?
Bloody tarts swallering down kippers as fast as they can turn ’em out of
the pan, and us ’ere with a cup of tea between four of us and lucky to
get that! Kippers!”

[¶319] _Mr. Tallboys_ (stage curate-wise): “The wages of sin is kippers.”

[¶320] _Ginger_: “Don’t breathe in my face, Deafie. I can’t bleeding stand it.”

[¶321] _Charlie_ (in his sleep): “Charles-Wisdom-drunk-
and-incapable-drunk?-yes-six-shillings-move-on-_next_!

[¶322] _Dorothy_ (on Mrs. McElligot’s bosom): “Oh, joy, joy!” (They are
asleep.)

### §II

[¶324] And so it goes on.

[¶325] Dorothy endured this life for ten days—to be exact, nine days and ten
nights. It was hard to see what else she could do. Her father,
seemingly, had abandoned her altogether, and though she had friends in
London who would readily have helped her, she did not feel that she
could face them after what had happened, or what was supposed to have
happened. And she dared not apply to organised charity because it would
almost certainly lead to the discovery of her name, and hence, perhaps,
to a fresh hullabaloo about the “Rector’s Daughter.”

[¶326] So she stayed in London, and became one of that curious tribe, rare but
never quite extinct—the tribe of women who are penniless and homeless,
but who make such desperate efforts to hide it that they very nearly
succeed; women who wash their faces at drinking fountains in the cold of
the dawn, and carefully uncrumple their clothes after sleepless nights,
and carry themselves with an air of reserve and decency, so that only
their faces, pale beneath sunburn, tell you for certain that they are
destitute. It was not in her to become a hardened beggar like most of
the people about her. Her first twenty-four hours on the Square she
spent without any food whatever, except for the cup of tea that she had
had overnight and a third of a cup more that she had had at Wilkins’s
café in the morning. But in the evening, made desperate by hunger and
the others’ example, she walked up to a strange woman, mastered her
voice with an effort, and said: “Please, Madam, could you give me
twopence? I have had nothing to eat since yesterday.” The woman stared,
but she opened her purse and gave Dorothy threepence. Dorothy did not
know it, but her educated accent, which had made it impossible to get
work as a servant, was an invaluable asset to her as a beggar.

[¶327] After that she found that it was really very easy to beg the daily
shilling or so that was needed to keep her alive. And yet she never
begged—it seemed to her that actually she could not do it—except when
hunger was past bearing or when she had got to lay in the precious penny
that was the passport to Wilkins’s café in the morning. With Nobby, on
the way to the hopfields, she had begged without fear or scruple. But it
had been different then; she had not known what she was doing. Now, it
was only under the spur of actual hunger that she could screw her
courage to the point, and ask for a few coppers from some women whose
face looked friendly. It was always women that she begged from, of
course. She did once try begging from a man—but only once.

[¶328] For the rest, she grew used to the life that she was leading—used to
the enormous sleepless nights, the cold, the dirt, the boredom and the
horrible communism of the square. After a day or two she had ceased to
feel even a flicker of surprise at her situation. She had come, like
everyone about her, to accept this monstrous existence almost as though
it were normal. The dazed, witless feeling that she had known on the way
to the hopfields had come back upon her more strongly than before. It is
the common effect of sleeplessness and still more of exposure. To live
continuously in the open air, never going under a roof for more than an
hour or two, blurs your perceptions like a strong light glaring in your
eyes or a noise drumming in your ears. You act and plan and suffer, and
yet all the while it is as though everything were a little out of focus,
a little unreal. The world, inner and outer, grows dimmer till it
reaches almost the vagueness of a dream.

[¶329] Meanwhile, the police were getting to know her by sight. On the Square
people are perpetually coming and going, more or less unnoticed. They
arrive from nowhere with their drums and their bundles, camp for a few
days and nights and then disappear as mysteriously as they came. If you
stay for more than a week or thereabouts, the police will mark you down
as an habitual beggar, and they will arrest you sooner or later. It is
impossible for them to enforce the begging laws at all regularly, but
from time to time they make a sudden raid and capture two or three of
the people they have had their eye on. And so it happened in Dorothy’s
case.

[¶330] One evening she was “knocked off,” in company with Mrs. McElligot and
another woman whose name she did not know. They had been careless and
begged off a nasty old lady with a face like a horse, who had promptly
walked up to the nearest policeman and given them in charge.

[¶331] Dorothy did not mind very much. Everything was dreamlike now—the face
of the nasty old lady, eagerly accusing them, and the walk to the
station with a young policeman’s gentle, almost deferential hand on her
arm; and then the white-tiled cell, with the fatherly sergeant handing
her a cup of tea through the grille and telling her that the magistrate
wouldn’t be too hard on her if she pleaded guilty. In the cell next door
Mrs. McElligot stormed at the sergeant, called him a bloody get and then
spent half the night in bewailing her fate. But Dorothy had no feeling
save vague relief at being in so clean and warm a place. She crept
immediately on to the plank bed that was fixed like a shelf to the wall,
too tired even to pull the blankets about her, and slept for ten hours
without stirring. It was only on the following morning that she began to
grasp the reality of her situation, as the Black Maria rolled briskly up
to Old Street Police Court, to the tune of “Adeste fideles” shouted by
five drunks inside.