as his heart listeth--in
short, one place of his own on the earth of which he can say: "This is
mine, my castle; the world stops at the threshold; here am I lord and
master." He will be a better citizen, this man; and he will do a better
day's work.

I stood on one floor of the poor man's hotel and listened. I went from
bed to bed and looked at the sleepers. They were young men, from twenty
to forty, most of them. Old men cannot afford the working-man's home.
They go to the workhouse. But I looked at the young men, scores of them,
and they were not bad-looking fellows. Their faces were made for women's
kisses, their necks for women's arms. They were lovable, as men are
lovable. They were capable of love. A woman's touch redeems and
softens, and they needed such redemption and softening instead of each
day growing harsh and harsher. And I wondered where these women were,
and heard a "harlot's ginny laugh." Leman Street, Waterloo Road,
Piccadilly, The Strand, answered me, and I knew where they were.

CHAPTER XXI--THE PRECARIOUSNESS OF LIFE

I was talking with a very vindictive man. In his opinion, his wife had
wronged him and the law had wronged him. The merits and morals of the
case are immaterial. The meat of the matter is that she had obtained a
separation, and he was compelled to pay ten shillings each week for the
support of her and the five children. "But look you," said he to me,
"wot'll 'appen to 'er if I don't py up the ten shillings? S'posin', now,
just s'posin' a accident 'appens to me, so I cawn't work. S'posin' I get
a rupture, or the rheumatics, or the cholera. Wot's she goin' to do, eh?
Wot's she goin' to do?"

He shook his head sadly. "No 'ope for 'er. The best she cawn do is the
work'ouse, an' that's 'ell. An' if she don't go to the work'ouse, it'll
be a worse 'ell. Come along 'ith me an' I'll show you women sleepin' in
a passage, a dozen of 'em. An' I'll show you worse, wot she'll come to
if anythin' 'appens to me and the ten shillings."

The certitude of this man's forecast is worthy of consideration. He knew
conditions sufficiently to know the precariousness of his wife's grasp on
food and shelter. For her game was up when his working capacity was
impaired or destroyed. And when this state of affairs is looked at in
its larger aspect, the same will be found true of hundreds of thousands
and even millions of men and women living amicably together and
co-operating