Page:The Yellow Book - 08.djvu/177

and sleek traffickers in iniquity. If anything on earth can bring a ray of decency into such a place, then in God's name let it come, whether it be called sense or rant by stay-at-home philosophers.

The hymn-singing added one more element to the discordant noise. But there was in it a suggestion of better things, which was absent from the song of the streets. The obvious chords of the music in that place acquired an adventitious beauty, just as the song of a humble hedge-linnet is lovely amid the croaking of ravens and hooting of owls. The people on the pavement looked on with varying interest. To most it was an everyday exhibition of the unaccountable. Women laughed, and shrieked coarse railleries; some of the men threatened, others looked on in amused scorn; but there was no impulse to active violence. The thing was tolerated as yonder seller of cheap watchguards was borne; for it is an unwritten law in the slums, that folk may do their own pleasure, as long as they cease from interfering offensively with the enjoyment of others.

"'Oo's the cove wi' the flag, Bill?" asked one woman. "'E haint so bad as the rest. Most loikely 'e's taken up the job to dodge the nick."

"Dodge the nick yersel', Lizer," said the man addressed. "Wy, it's the chap's wye o' making his livin', a roarin' and a preachin' like that. S'help me, I'd rather cry 'Welks' any dye than go about wi' sich a crew."

A woman, garishly adorned, with a handsome flushed face, looked up at the Captain.

"Why, it's Jack," she cried. "Bless me if it ain't Jack. Jack, Jack, what are you after now, not coming to speak to me. Don't you mind Sal, your little Sal. I'm coming to yer, I ain't forgotten yer." And she began to push her way into mid-street.

The Captain looked to the side, and his glance rested upon herface.