illusory joys of the town. There may be greater possibilities of
enjoyment; but this huge, carnivorous plant--this gigantic city of
London--has only displayed its attractions in order to gain its prey.
They are drawn by the colours of the petals, they come to the honeyed
perfume of its scent; but once caught in the prison of its embrace,
there is only the slow poison of forced labour that eats its deadly
way into the very heart of their vitality.

In one of these offices off Covent Garden, under a green-shaded lamp
that cast its metallic rays on to the typewriting machine before her,
sat one of the young lady clerks in the establishment of Bonsfield
& Co., a firm of book-buyers. They carried on a promiscuous trade
with America and the Colonies, and managed, by the straining of ends,
to meet their expenses and show a small margin of profit. You
undertake the labour of a slave in Egypt, and run the risk of a forlorn
hope when you try to make a living wage in London as your own master.
The price of freedom in a free country is beyond the reach of most
pockets.

The hour of six had rung out from the neighbouring clocks, yet this
girl showed no signs of finishing her work. From down in the street
you could see her bent over the machine, her fingers pounding the
keys--human hammers monotonously striving to beat out a pattern upon
metal, a pattern that would never come. The light from the
green-shaded lamp above her, fell obliquely on her head. It lit up
her pale, golden hair like a sun-ray; it drew out the round, gentle
curve of her face and threw it up against the darkness of the room
beyond. So well as it could, with its harsh methods, it made a picture.
One instinctively paused to look at it. A man coming out of the
shadows of the Covent Garden Market stopped as he passed down King