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Page 2
"Never mind that," I interposed, to save myself from being swept out of
the office by his flood of negations. "Here's something you can do for
me. I wish you to understand in advance what I intend doing, so that in
case of trouble you may be able to identify me."
"Ah, I see! should you be murdered, we would be in position to identify
the corpse."
He said it so cheerfully and cold-bloodedly that on the instant I saw my
stark and mutilated cadaver stretched upon a slab where cool waters
trickle ceaselessly, and him I saw bending over and sadly and patiently
identifying it as the body of the insane American who _would_ see the
East End.
"No, no," I answered; "merely to identify me in case I get into a scrape
with the 'bobbies.'" This last I said with a thrill; truly, I was
gripping hold of the vernacular.
"That," he said, "is a matter for the consideration of the Chief Office."
"It is so unprecedented, you know," he added apologetically.
The man at the Chief Office hemmed and hawed. "We make it a rule," he
explained, "to give no information concerning our clients."
"But in this case," I urged, "it is the client who requests you to give
the information concerning himself."
Again he hemmed and hawed.
"Of course," I hastily anticipated, "I know it is unprecedented, but--"
"As I was about to remark," he went on steadily, "it is unprecedented,
and I don't think we can do anything for you."
However, I departed with the address of a detective who lived in the East
End, and took my way to the American consul-general. And here, at last,
I found a man with whom I could "do business." There was no hemming and
hawing, no lifted brows, open incredulity, or blank amazement. In one
minute I explained myself and my project, which he accepted as a matter
of course. In the second minute he asked my age, height, and weight, and
looked me over. And in the third minute, as we shook hands at parting,
he said: "All right, Jack. I'll remember you and keep track."
I breathed a sigh of relief. Having burnt my ships behind me, I was now
free to plunge into that human wilderness of which nobody seemed to know
anything. But at once I encountered a new difficulty in the shape of my
cabby, a grey-whiskered and eminently decorous personage who had
imperturbably driven me for several hours about the "City."
"Drive me down to the East End," I ordered, taking my seat.
"Where, sir?" he demanded with frank surprise.
"To the East End, anywhere. Go on."
The hansom pursued an aimless way for several minutes, then came to a
puzzled stop. The aperture above my head was uncovered, and the cabman
peered down perplexedly at me.
"I say," he said, "wot plyce yer wanter go?"
"East End," I repeated. "Nowhere in particular. Just drive me around
anywhere."
"But wot's the haddress, sir?"
"See here!" I thundered. "Drive me down to the East End, and at once!"
It was evident that he did not understand, but he withdrew his head, and
grumblingly started his horse.
Nowhere in the streets of London may one escape the sight of abject
poverty, while five minutes' walk from almost any point will bring one to
a slum; but the region my hansom was now penetrating was one unending
slum. The streets were filled with a new and different race of people,
short of stature, and of wretched or beer-sodden appearance. We rolled
along through miles of bricks and squalor, and from each cross street and
alley flashed long vistas of bricks and misery. Here and there lurched a
drunken man or woman, and the air was obscene with sounds of jangling and
squabbling. At a market, tottery old men and women were searching in the
garbage thrown in the mud for rotten potatoes, beans, and vegetables,
while little children clustered like flies around a festering mass of
fruit, thrusting their arms to the shoulders into the liquid corruption,
and drawing forth morsels but partially decayed, which they devoured on
the spot.
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