enough to tramp it home, I said my adieux to that good friend and tramped
away, entering London with about the same amount in small coin as when I
entered Nancy. A manner of exactly hitting the mark, that some would not
find so satisfactory as it is to me.'

The minister sighed. 'There comes in the "philosophy," I suppose. When
will you understand, that this "philosophy" is only the passive of a
religious faith? It seems to suit you gentlemen of the road while you
are young. Work among the Whitechapel poor. It would be a way for
discovering the shallows of your "philosophy" earlier.'

Gower asked him: 'Going badly here, sir?'

'Murders, robberies, misusage of women, and misconduct of women!--Drink,
in short: about the same amount. Drink is their death's river, rolling
them on helpless as corpses, on to--may they find mercy! I and a few
stand--it's in the tide we stand here, to stop them, pluck them out, make
life a bit sweet to them before the poor bodies go beneath. But come!
all's not dark, we have our gleams. I speak distressed by one of our
girls: a good girl, I believe; and the wilfullest that ever had command
of her legs. A well-favoured girl! You'll laugh, she has given her
heart to a prize-fighter. Well, you can say, she might have chosen
worse. He drinks, she hates it; she loves the man and hates his vice.
He swears amendment, is hiccupping at night; fights a match on the
morrow, and gets beaten out of formation. No matter: whenever, wherever,
that man goes to his fight, that girl follows to nurse him after it.
He's her hero. Women will have one, and it's their lottery. You read of
such things; here we have it alive and walking. I am led to think they
're an honest couple. They come of established families. Her mother was
out of Caermarthen; died under my ministration, saintly, forgiving the