‘Mad with life’s history, Glad to death’s mystery, Swift to be hurled Anywhere—anywhere Out of the world.’
And she felt half inclined to climb over and do the same herself, only the water looked so black and cold, and she put off her half-formed purpose for another day. Perhaps, also, she was too old for that sort of thing. She should have taken the false leap when she was gay and good-looking. Then the papers would have made London ring with her story, and the low pictorial pennies would have made her the subject of a sensational sketch.
As she was, alas! prematurely old, and wrinkled, and gray, no one would take any notice of her; it was hardly worth while attempting to drown herself, she thought. She might as well live on, she could not well be worse off; and then she sat herself down in the arch and fell asleep, dreaming of— But who can tell the grotesque misery of a tramp’s dream?
Suddenly she was awoke by the policeman’s grasp.
‘Well, old ’oman,’ said he, ‘you’ve been having a nice time of it here.’
‘And why not?’ said she, waking up to a sense of her condition. ‘Why not? What’s the harm of sleeping out here? I arn’t kicking up a row—I arn’t creating a disturbance—I arn’t screaming “Perlice!” am I? I arn’t in no ways disrespectful or aggravatin’—why can’t you let me be?’
‘’Cause it is agin the perlice regulations,’ was the reply.
‘The perlice regulations, what are they?’
‘Why, that you must not stop here, and it is as much as my place is worth to let you.’
‘Oh, p’liceman, don’t be hard on a poor old woman that’s enjoying the hevening hair!’
‘No, I can’t,’ said he. ‘I am going over the bridge. When I come back, don’t let me find you here. You’ve had a nice little nap. You must be as fresh as a daisy now.’
‘Perhaps I am, and perhaps I am not,’ said the poor woman, as she renewed her aimless walk.
In a few minutes she was in the Strand, just as the theatres were emptied of admiring crowds. Of course the poor woman knew all about such matters. Many a time in the pride of youth had she spent an evening in the pit. Many a time, at a later period, she had sold lucifer matches at the pit doors, and many were the coppers she had earned thereby.
She liked to see the bright lamps, and the swells, and the women, as well as anyone else. The sight, she said, did her old eyes good. That night the crowd had been unusually large. The last theatrical star, as she learned from the bills, Miss Kate Howard, had been performing, and all the world and his wife had come there to see.