ly
misery of all the ages is collected here in essence, and from it the
atmosphere is charged; an atmosphere more horrible than any that I know:
worse than that of Chinatown, worse than that of Shadwell. These are
merely insidious and menacing, but Duval Street is painful.

It was here that I had the nearest approach to an adventure that I have
ever had in London. I was sitting in the common kitchen of one of the
houses which was conspicuously labelled on its outer white-washed lamp--

GOOD BEDS
FOR MEN ONLY
FOURPENCE

The notice, however, was but the usual farcical compliance with the law
which nobody regards and which nobody executes. Women were there in
plenty--mostly old, unkempt women, wearing but a bodice and skirt and
boots. The kitchen was a bare, blue-washed apartment, the floor sanded,
with a long wooden table and two or three wooden forms. A generous fire
roared up a wide chimney. The air was thick with fumes of pipes that had
been replenished with "old soldiers" from West End gutters. Suddenly a
girl came in with an old man. I looked at her with some interest because
she was young, with copper-coloured hair that strayed about her face
with all the profusion of an autumn sunset. She was the only youthful
thing in the place, bar myself. I looked at her with rather excited
interest because she was very drunk. She called the old man Dad. A few
of the men greeted him. One or two nodded to the girl. "'Lo, Luba. Bin
on the randy?" The women looked at her, not curiously, or with
compassion or disgust, but cursorily. I fancied, from certain incipient
movements, that she was about to be violently bilious; but she wasn't.
We were sitting in silence when she came in. The silence continued.
Nobody moved, nobody offered to make way. Dad swore at a huge scrofulous
tramp, and kneed him a little aside from the fire. The tramp slipped
from the edge of the form, but made no rebuke. Dad sat down and left
Luba to herself. She swayed perilously for a moment, and then flopped
weakly to the form on which I sat. The man I was with leaned across me.

"'Ad a rough time in the box, Luba?"

Luba nodded feebly. Her mouth sagged open; her eyes drooped; her head
rolled.

"I 'eard abaht it," he went on. "Hunky Bottles see a _Star_ wi' your
pickcher in. And the old man's questions. Put you through it, din' 'e?"

Again Luba nodded. The next moment sh