“A very great deal, sir. I feel sure, Mr. Todhetley, that you can form no idea of the miserable temptations that beset a young fellow in London. Quite half the London clerks, perhaps more, have no home to go to when their day is over; I mean no parent’s home. A solitary room and no one to bear them company in it; that’s all they have; perhaps, in addition, a crabbed landlady. Can you blame them very much if they go out and escape this solitude?—they are at the age, you know, when enjoyment is most keen; the thirst for it well-nigh irrepressible——”
“And then they go off to those disreputable singing places!” exploded the Squire, not allowing him to finish.
“Singing places, yes; and other places. Theatres, concerts, supper-rooms—oh, I cannot tell you a tithe of the temptation that meets them at every turn and corner. Many and many a poor young fellow, well-intentioned in the main, has been ruined both in pocket and in health by these snares; led into them at first by dangerous companions.”
“Surely all do not get led away.”
“Not all. Some strive on manfully, remembering early precepts and taking God for their guide, and so escape. But it is not the greater portion who do this. Some marry early, and secure themselves a home. Which is best?—I put the question only in a worldly point of view. To commit the imprudence of marrying, and so bring on themselves and wives intolerable perplexity and care: or to waste their substance in riotous living!”
“I’ll be shot if I know!” cried the Squire, taking off his hat to rub his puzzled head. “It’s a sad thing for poor little children to be pinched, and for men like you to be obliged to work yourselves to shatters to keep them. But as to those others, I’d give ’em all a night at the treadmill. Johnny! Johnny Ludlow!”
“Yes, sir.”
“You may be thankful that you don’t live in London.”
I had been thinking to myself that I was thankful not to be one of those poor young clerks to have no home to go to when work was over. Some fellows would rather tramp up and down the streets, than sit alone in a solitary room; and the streets, according to Marks, teemed with temptations. He resumed.