Page 177 - down-and-out-in-paris-and-london

daily march. Looking at our faces, unshaven and creased
from the sleepless night, you would have thought that all of
us were recovering from a week on the drink.
The inspection was designed merely to detect smallpox,
and took no notice of our general condition. A young medi-
cal student, smoking a cigarette, walked rapidly along the
line glancing us up and down, and not inquiring whether
any man was well or ill. When my cell companion stripped
I saw that his chest was covered with a red rash, and, having
spent the night a few inches away from him, I fell into a pan-
ic about smallpox. The doctor, however, examined the rash
and said that it was due merely to under-nourishment.
After the inspection we dressed and were sent into the
yard, where the porter called our names over, gave us back
any possessions we had left at the office, and distributed
meal tickets. These were worth sixpence each, and were di-
rected to coffee-shops on the route we had named the night
before. It was interesting to see that quite a number of the
tramps could not read, and had to apply to myself and other
‘scholards’ to decipher their tickets.
The gates were opened, and we dispersed immediately.
How sweet the air does smell—even the air of a back street
in the suburbs—after the shut-in, subfaecal stench of the
spike! I had a mate now, for while we were peeling potatoes I
had made friends with an Irish tramp named Paddy Jaques,
a melancholy pale man who seemed clean and decent. He
was going to Edbury spike, and suggested that we should go
together. We set out, getting there at three in the afternoon.
It was a twelve-mile walk, but we made it fourteen by get-

1 Down and Out in Paris and London