Londons Underworld | Page 7

of tragedies into a
short life. I am glad to think that I did my best for him, even though I
failed. He has gone! but he still has a place in my affections and
occupies a niche in the hall of my memory.
I very much doubt whether I am able to forget any one of the pieces of
broken humanity that have companied with me. I do not want to forget
them, for truth to tell they have been more interesting to me than
merely respectable people, and infinitely more interesting than some
good people.
But I am afraid that my tastes are bad, and my ideals low, for I am
always happier among the very poor or the outcasts than I am with the
decent and well behaved.
A fellow named Reid has been calling on me repeatedly; an Australian
by birth, he outraged the law so often that he got a succession of
sentences, some of them being lengthy. He tried South Africa with a
like result; South Africa soon had enough of him, and after two
sentences he was deported to England, where he looked me up.
He carries with him in a nice little case a certified and attested copy of
all his convictions, more than twenty in number. He produces this
without the least shame, almost with pride, and with the utmost
confidence that it would prove a ready passport to my affection.
I talk to him; he tells me of his life, of Australia and South Africa; he
almost hypnotises me, for he knows so much. We get on well together
till he produces the "attested copy," and then the spell is broken, and

the humour of it is too much for me, so I laugh.
He declares that he wants work, honest work, and he considers that his
"certificate" vouches for his bona fides. This is undoubtedly true, but
nevertheless I expect that it will be chiefly responsible for his free
passage back to Australia after he has sampled the quality of English
prisons.
My friends and acquaintances meet me or rather I meet them, in
undesirable places; I never visit a prison without coming across one or
more of them, and they embarrass me greatly.
A few Sundays ago I was addressing a large congregation of men in a
London prison. As I stood before them I was dismayed to see right in
the front rank an old and persistent acquaintance whom I thoroughly
and absolutely disliked, and he knew it, for on more than one occasion
I had good reason for expressing a decided opinion about him. A smile
of gleeful but somewhat mischievous satisfaction spread over his face;
he folded his arms across his breast, he looked up at me and quite held
me with his glittering eye.
I realised his presence, I felt that his eye was upon me, I saw that he
followed every word. He quite unnerved me till I stumbled and tripped.
Then he smiled in his evil way.
I could not get rid of his eyes, and sometimes I half appealed to him
with a pitiful look to take them off me. But it was no use, he still gazed
at me and through me. So thinking of him and looking at him I grew
more and more confused.
The clock fingers would not move fast enough for me. I had elected to
speak on sympathy, brotherhood and mutual help. And this fellow to
whom I had refused help again and again knew my feelings, and made
the most of his opportunity.
But my friend will come and see me when he is once more out of
prison. He will want to discuss my address of that particular Sunday
afternoon. He will quote my words, he will remind me about sympathy

and mutual help, he will hope to leave me rejoicing in the possession of
a few shillings.
But that will be the hour of my triumph; for then I will rejoice in the
contemplation of his disappointment as my door closes upon him. But
if I understand him aright his personal failure will not lead him to
despair, for he will appear again and again and sometimes by deputy,
and he will put others as cunning as himself on my track.
Some time ago I was tormented with a succession of visitors of this
description; my door was hardly free of one when another appeared.
They all told the same tale: "they had been advised to come to me, for I
was kind to men who had been in prison."
They got no practical kindness from me, but rather some wholesome
advice. I found afterwards from a lodging-house habitue that this man
had been taking his revenge by distributing written copies of my name