n the pavement as they walked
and talked, and every now and then one or the other would stoop and pick
something up, never missing the stride the while. I thought it was cigar
and cigarette stumps they were collecting, and for some time took no
notice. Then I did notice.

_From the slimy, spittle-drenched, sidewalk, they were picking up bits of
orange peel, apple skin, and grape stems, and, they were eating them. The
pits of greengage plums they cracked between their teeth for the kernels
inside. They picked up stray bits of bread the size of peas, apple cores
so black and dirty one would not take them to be apple cores, and these
things these two men took into their mouths, and chewed them, and
swallowed them; and this, between six and seven o'clock in the evening of
August 20, year of our Lord 1902, in the heart of the greatest,
wealthiest, and most powerful empire the world has ever seen_.

These two men talked. They were not fools, they were merely old. And,
naturally, their guts a-reek with pavement offal, they talked of bloody
revolution. They talked as anarchists, fanatics, and madmen would talk.
And who shall blame them? In spite of my three good meals that day, and
the snug bed I could occupy if I wished, and my social philosophy, and my
evolutionary belief in the slow development and metamorphosis of
things--in spite of all this, I say, I felt impelled to talk rot with
them or hold my tongue. Poor fools! Not of their sort are revolutions
bred. And when they are dead and dust, which will be shortly, other
fools will talk bloody revolution as they gather offal from the spittle-
drenched sidewalk along Mile End Road to Poplar Workhouse.

Being a foreigner, and a young man, the Carter and the Carpenter
explained things to me and advised me. Their advice, by the way, was
brief, and to the point; it was to get out of the country. "As fast as
God'll let me," I assured them; "I'll hit only the high places, till you
won't be able to see my trail for smoke." They felt the force of my
figures, rather than understood them, and they nodded their heads
approvingly.

"Actually make a man a criminal against 'is will," said the Carpenter.
"'Ere I am, old, younger men takin' my place, my clothes gettin' shabbier
an' shabbier, an' makin' it 'arder every day to get a job. I go to the
casual ward for a bed. Must be there by two or three in the afternoon or
I won't get in. You saw what happened to-day. What cha