Sir Thomas Ducaine was covered with shame as he saw the horrors all around—horrors existing upon his own property, long unregarded and unknown. But the young man was not the only one among them who registered a mental vow to do all that he could for the wretched beings they had come amongst.
Sir Augustus Kirwan, though he had taken the chair at many philanthropic meetings, and though his name often headed important subscription lists, had never really been brought in contact, in actual personal contact, with the great open wound of London.
The party had come to the mouth of a particularly evil-looking alley. There is character in brick and stone, and this place—"Wilson's Rents" by name—had a sinister cut-throat aspect in every line of it.
"What is in there?" Sir Augustus asked one of the police inspectors.
"It's a particularly bad street, Sir Augustus," the man answered. "A sort of great human rabbit-warren or rat's run, as you may say. The houses nearly all communicate through cellars and subterranean passages."
"Shall we go down here?" Sir Augustus asked Joseph.
"I should not advise it, sir," said the policeman. "The people are so dirty and degraded and disgusting in their habits that they hardly resemble human beings at all."
"Never mind that," Sir Augustus answered. "Now we have come I wish to see everything, however personally distasteful it may be. I am ashamed gentlemen, to think that I have shirked so obvious a duty as this for so long! I am sorry and ashamed of myself!"
With eyes that were not quite dry the great financier took Joseph by the arm and marched down the alley, followed by the others.
They walked cautiously down the place, which seemed strangely deserted. Sir Augustus was talking eagerly to Joseph, opening his heart in a way to which he had long been a stranger, when there was a sudden loud report in the air above them.