drunken man or woman, and the air was obscene with sounds of jangling and
squabbling. At a market, tottery old men and women were searching in the
garbage thrown in the mud for rotten potatoes, beans, and vegetables,
while little children clustered like flies around a festering mass of
fruit, thrusting their arms to the shoulders into the liquid corruption,
and drawing forth morsels but partially decayed, which they devoured on
the spot.

Not a hansom did I meet with in all my drive, while mine was like an
apparition from another and better world, the way the children ran after
it and alongside. And as far as I could see were the solid walls of
brick, the slimy pavements, and the screaming streets; and for the first
time in my life the fear of the crowd smote me. It was like the fear of
the sea; and the miserable multitudes, street upon street, seemed so many
waves of a vast and malodorous sea, lapping about me and threatening to
well up and over me.

"Stepney, sir; Stepney Station," the cabby called down.

I looked about. It was really a railroad station, and he had driven
desperately to it as the one familiar spot he had ever heard of in all
that wilderness.

"Well," I said.

He spluttered unintelligibly, shook his head, and looked very miserable.
"I'm a strynger 'ere," he managed to articulate. "An' if yer don't want
Stepney Station, I'm blessed if I know wotcher do want."

"I'll tell you what I want," I said. "You drive along and keep your eye