“It was glorious fun altogether, and the world is so amusing that I can't imagine why anybody should go out of it before he must. I hadn't gone a dozen yards in my new character as Dick Whittington fille before a coachman as fat as an elephant was shouting, 'Where d'ye think yer going ter?' and I was nearly run down in the Broad Sanctuary by a carriage containing two brazen women in sealskin jackets, with faces so thick with powder and paint that you would have thought they had been quarrelling on washing day and thrown the blue bag at each other's eyes. I recognised one of them as a former nurse who had left the hospital in disgrace, but happily she didn't see me, for the little hard lump at my heart was turning as bitter as gall at that moment, so I made some philosophical observations to myself and passed on.
“Oh, my gracious, these London landladies! They must be female Shylocks, for the pound of flesh is the badge of all their tribe. The first one I boarded asked two guineas for two rooms, and lights and fires extra. 'By the month?' says I. 'Yus, by the month if ye like,' says she. 'Two guineas a month?' says I. Marry come up! I was out of that house in a twinkling.
“Then I looked out a group of humbler thoroughfares, not far from the Houses of Parliament, where nearly every house had a card fixed up on a little green blind. At last I found a place that would do—for my week, only my week, you know. Ten shillings and no extras. 'I'll take them,' said I with a lofty air, and thereupon the landlady, a grim person, with the suspicion of a mustache, began to cross-examine me. Was I married? Oh, dear, no! Then what was my business? Fool that I was, I said I had none, being full of my Dick Whittingtonism, and not choosing to remember the hospital, for I was wearing my private clothes, you know. But hoot! She didn't take unmarried young ladies without businesses, and I was out in the street once more.
“I didn't mind it, not I indeed, and it was only for fun after all; but since people objected to girls without businesses, I made up my mind to be a singer if anybody asked me the question again. My third landlady had only one room, and it was on the second floor back, but before I got the length of mounting to this eyry I went through my examination afresh. 'In the profession, miss?' 'What profession?' 'The styge, of course.' 'Well, ye—yes, something of that sort.' 'Don't tyke anybody that's on the styge.'
“Oh, dear! Oh, dear! I could have screamed, it was so ridiculous; but time was getting on, Big Ben was striking four, and the day was closing in. Then I saw the sign, 'Home for Girls.' 'Wonder if it is a charity?' thinks I; but no, it didn't look like that, so in I went as bold as brass, and inquired for the manageress. 'Is it the matron you mean, miss?' 'Very well, the matron then,' said I, and presently she came up—no, not smiling, for she wasn't an amiable-looking Christian, but I thought she would smother me with mysterious questions. 'Tired of the life, are you, my dear? It is a cruel one, isn't it?' I stood my ground for some minutes, and then, feeling dreadfully thick in the throat, and cold down the back, I asked her what she was talking about, whereupon she looked bewildered and inquired if I was a good girl, and being told that I hoped so, she said she couldn't take me in there, and then pointed to a card oh the wall which, simpleton that I was, I hadn't read before: 'A home and rescue is offered to women who desire to leave a life of misery and disgrace.'
“I did scream that time, the world was so nonsensical. At one place, being 'on the styge' I was not good enough to be taken in, at another I was not bad enough, and what in the name of all that was ridiculous was going to happen next? But it was quite dark by this time, the air was as black as a northwest gale, and I was 'aweary for all my wings,' so forgetting Dick Whittington fille, and only remembering the good female Samaritan who had asked me to stay with her, I made a dart for Victoria Street and jumped into the first 'bus that came along, just as the hotels and the clubs and the great buildings were putting' out the Prince of Wales's feathers as sign and symbol of the usual rejoicings within.
“It was an 'Atlas' omnibus, and it took me to Piccadilly Circus, and that being the wrong direction, I had to change. But a fog had come down in the meanwhile, and lo, there I was in the middle of it!
“O Ananias, Azarias, and Misael! Do you know what a London fog is? It's smoke, it's soot, it's sulphur. It is darker than night, for it extinguishes the lights, and denser than the mist on the Curragh, and filthier than the fumes of the brick-kiln. It makes you think the whole round earth must be a piggery copper and that London has lifted the lid off. In the midst of this inferno the cabs crawl and the 'buses creep, and foul fiends, who turn out to be men merely, go flitting about with torches, and you grope and croak and cough, and the most innocent faces come puffing and snorting down on you like the beasts in the Apocalypse.
“I thought it good fun at first, but presently I could only keep from crying by having a good laugh, and I was doing that, and asking somebody the way to the Holborn omnibus, when a policeman pushed me and said: 'Come, move on; none of yer lyterin' abart here!'
“I could have choked, but remembering something I had seen on that very spot on the night of my first day out, I dived across the street and ran in spite of curses and collisions. But the 'somebody,' whoever he was, had followed me, and he put me into the right 'bus, so I got here at last. It took two mortal hours to do it, and after that spell of purgatory this house is like a blessed paradise, peopled with angels of mercy and grace, as paradise ought to be.