he sun was fitfully
appearing, and the well-dressed West Enders, with their wives and
progeny, were out by thousands, taking the air. It was not a pleasant
sight for them, those horrible, unkempt, sleeping vagabonds; while the
vagabonds themselves, I know, would rather have done their sleeping the
night before.

And so, dear soft people, should you ever visit London Town, and see
these men asleep on the benches and in the grass, please do not think
they are lazy creatures, preferring sleep to work. Know that the powers
that be have kept them walking all the night long, and that in the day
they have nowhere else to sleep.

CHAPTER XI--THE PEG

But, after carrying the banner all night, I did not sleep in Green Park
when morning dawned. I was wet to the skin, it is true, and I had had no
sleep for twenty-four hours; but, still adventuring as a penniless man
looking for work, I had to look about me, first for a breakfast, and next
for the work.

During the night I had heard of a place over on the Surrey side of the
Thames, where the Salvation Army every Sunday morning gave away a
breakfast to the unwashed. (And, by the way, the men who carry the
banner are unwashed in the morning, and unless it is raining they do not
have much show for a wash, either.) This, thought I, is the very
thing--breakfast in the morning, and then the whole day in which to look
for work.

It was a weary walk. Down St. James Street I dragged my tired legs,
along Pall Mall, past Trafalgar Square, to the Strand. I crossed the
Waterloo Bridge to the Surrey side, cut across to Blackfriars Road,
coming out near the Surrey Theatre, and arrived at the Salvation Army
barracks before seven o'clock. This was "the peg." And by "the peg," in
the argot, is meant the place where a free meal may be obtained.

Here was a motley crowd of woebegone wretches who had spent the night in
the rain. Such prodigious misery! and so much of it! Old men, young
men, all manner of men, and boys to boot, and all manner of boys. Some
were drowsing standing up; half a score of them were stretched out on the
stone steps in most painful postures, all of them sound asleep, the skin
of their bodies showing red through the holes, and rents in their rags.
And up and down the street and across the street for a block either way,
each doorstep had from two to three occupants, all asleep, their heads
bent forward on their knees. And, it must be remembered, these ar