[Illustration: "I brings up little dogs for fancy men, and takes in sick uns to nurse."]
Both doors were open, and the lodgers were in evident expectation of a visit. In the front room were three men and four women: the men had cotton handkerchiefs of a reddish colour about their necks, their hair being arranged in the peculiar curl round the ear known in their circle as the Newgate cut. One of them, with an air of blandness, offered the visitor a chair, and said, "I am always glad to see a Missionary gent. Where I comes from, near Petticoat Lane, is one of them, maybe you knows him: he's werry good to chaps that gets into trouble. Now this woman has got a boy as is always unlucky: he went a lifting and got nabbed first time, and got a week, as he wasn't known; after that he hopped over a wall for something, and a Bobby was down on him, and for that he got a month; and then he relieved a gent of his ticker, and for that he's doing four months upon the mill, and I think that he ought to be reformed. He'll be out on Monday, and if you will tell me where you live, I will bring him to you, and you can put him somewhere. If you doesn't he'll be into trouble again, because, as I says, he's unlucky." The reasons given were not likely to stimulate zeal, but the Missionary arranged to see the young thief immediately after his discharge from prison. A friendly conversation, followed, and several young girls and juvenile thieves, who came in from the other room, remained to hear the Bible read. The evil consequences of sin were pointed out to them, and the way of salvation was explained. Deep emotion was expressed by several of these depraved persons, and there was a friendly parting.
Upon the ground floor a fragrance redolent of sea-weeds filled the air, and was a pleasant relief from the state of the atmosphere upstairs. The cause of this strange perfume was apparent upon the door of the back room being opened by an old man, who appeared as if he was undergoing a salivating process. The floor was covered with baskets and trays with piles of whelks upon them, some of which were cooked and some were not. As the man was rather deaf, it was difficult to make him understand the object of the visit; but when he did so, he asked the stranger in. He refused an offered tract, with the remark, "I ain't got no larning, Mister, and I burns every bit of paper I gits, so it 'ould be smoke if you comed for it. I cooks these whelks for chaps and women as stands with stalls, and gets a penny a kettleful." When told "that at his age the great matter was not his business, but his fitness for a better world," he laughed and said, "All I want is to die easy, so I moves the things, and puts my mattress the right way, as we never knows what may be, and they says as it's hard to die the cross-way of boards." He was told that "to pray to the great God in the name of Jesus for pardon and His Holy Spirit, was the way for old people to be made happy, and to die easy." But he looked vacant, as though the subjects of pardon and immortality were strange to him. Upon his saying that cooking was over early in the evening, the visitor showed him the Bible, and said, "This was written by the good Father in heaven, and I will come some evening and read out of it." He looked pleased as he approached his fish-kettle, and the visitor was then glad to make his escape from a kind of warm sea-fog.