Also, as I looked at the mite of a youth with the heart of a
lion, I thought, this is the type that on occasion rears barricades and
shows the world that men have not forgotten how to die.
But up spoke my other companion, a man of twenty-eight, who eked out a
precarious existence in a sweating den.
"I'm a 'earty man, I am," he announced. "Not like the other chaps at my
shop, I ain't. They consider me a fine specimen of manhood. W'y, d' ye
know, I weigh ten stone!"
I was ashamed to tell him that I weighed one hundred and seventy pounds,
or over twelve stone, so I contented myself with taking his measure.
Poor, misshapen little man! His skin an unhealthy colour, body gnarled
and twisted out of all decency, contracted chest, shoulders bent
prodigiously from long hours of toil, and head hanging heavily forward
and out of place! A "'earty man,' 'e was!"
"How tall are you?"
"Five foot two," he answered proudly; "an' the chaps at the shop . . . "
"Let me see that shop," I said.
The shop was idle just then, but I still desired to see it. Passing
Leman Street, we cut off to the left into Spitalfields, and dived into
Frying-pan Alley. A spawn of children cluttered the slimy pavement, for
all the world like tadpoles just turned frogs on the bottom of a dry
pond.
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