Page 185 - down-and-out-in-paris-and-london

day meal.
When we got into London we had eight hours to kill be-
fore the lodging-houses opened. It is curious how one does
not notice things. I had been in London innumerable times,
and yet till that day I had never noticed one of the worst
things about London—the fact that it costs money even
to sit down. In Paris, if you had no money and could not
find a public bench, you would sit on the pavement. Heaven
knows what sitting on the pavement would lead to in Lon-
don—prison, probably. By four we had stood five hours, and
our feet seemed red-hot from the hardness of the stones. We
were hungry, having eaten our ration as soon as we left the
spike, and I was out of tobacco—it mattered less to Paddy,
who picked up cigarette ends. We tried two churches and
found them locked. Then we tried a public library, but there
were no seats in it. As a last hope Paddy suggested trying
a Rowton House; by the rules they would not let us in be-
fore seven, but we might slip in unnoticed. We walked up
to the magnificent doorway (the Rowton Houses really are
magnificent) and very casually, trying to look like regular
lodgers, began to stroll in. Instantly a man lounging in the
doorway, a sharp-faced fellow, evidently in some position of
authority, barred the way.
‘You men sleep ‘ere last night?’
‘No.’
‘Then—off.’
We obeyed, and stood two more hours on the street
corner. It was unpleasant, but it taught me not to use the ex-
pression ‘street corner loafer’, so I gained something from

1 Down and Out in Paris and London