Dan
Cullen was discriminated against. While he was not absolutely turned
away (which would have caused trouble, and which would certainly have
been more merciful), he was called in by the foreman to do not more than
two or three days' work per week. This is what is called being
"disciplined," or "drilled." It means being starved. There is no
politer word. Ten years of it broke his heart, and broken-hearted men
cannot live.
He took to his bed in his terrible den, which grew more terrible with his
helplessness. He was without kith or kin, a lonely old man, embittered
and pessimistic, fighting vermin the while and looking at Garibaldi,
Engels, and Dan Burns gazing down at him from the blood-bespattered
walls. No one came to see him in that crowded municipal barracks (he had
made friends with none of them), and he was left to rot.
But from the far reaches of the East End came a cobbler and his son, his
sole friends. They cleansed his room, brought fresh linen from home, and
took from off his limbs the sheets, greyish-black with dirt. And they
brought to him one of the Queen's Bounty nurses from Aldgate.
She washed his face, shook up his conch, and talked with him. It was
interesting to talk with him--until he learned her name.
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