third. The first time I started out at seven o'clock in the evening with
four shillings in my pocket. Herein I committed two errors. In the
first place, the applicant for admission to the casual ward must be
destitute, and as he is subjected to a rigorous search, he must really be
destitute; and fourpence, much less four shillings, is sufficient
affluence to disqualify him. In the second place, I made the mistake of
tardiness. Seven o'clock in the evening is too late in the day for a
pauper to get a pauper's bed.

For the benefit of gently nurtured and innocent folk, let me explain what
a ward is. It is a building where the homeless, bedless, penniless man,
if he be lucky, may _casually_ rest his weary bones, and then work like a
navvy next day to pay for it.

My second attempt to break into the casual ward began more auspiciously.
I started in the middle of the afternoon, accompanied by the burning
young socialist and another friend, and all I had in my pocket was
thru'pence. They piloted me to the Whitechapel Workhouse, at which I
peered from around a friendly corner. It was a few minutes past five in
the afternoon but already a long and melancholy line was formed, which
strung out around the corner of the building and out of sight.

It was a most woeful picture, men and women waiting in the cold grey end
of the day for a pauper's shelter from the night, and I confess it almost
unnerved me. Like the boy before the dentist's door, I suddenly
discovered a multitude of reasons for being elsewhere. Some hints of the
struggle going on within must have shown in my face, for one of my
companions said, "Don't funk; you can do it."

Of course I could do it, but I became aware that even thru'pence in my