By doing
16.3 per cent. justice to our stomachs, we would expend the sixpence, and
our stomachs would still be gnawing under 83.3 per cent. injustice. Being
broke again, we could sleep under a hedge, which was not so bad, though
the cold would sap an undue portion of what we had eaten. But the morrow
was Sunday, on which we could do no work, though our silly stomachs would
not knock off on that account. Here, then, was the problem: how to get
three meals on Sunday, and two on Monday (for we could not make another
"sub" till Monday evening).
We knew that the casual wards were overcrowded; also, that if we begged
from farmer or villager, there was a large likelihood of our going to
jail for fourteen days. What was to be done? We looked at each other in
despair--
--Not a bit of it. We joyfully thanked God that we were not as other
men, especially hoppers, and went down the road to Maidstone, jingling in
our pockets the half-crowns and florins we had brought from London.
CHAPTER XV--THE SEA WIFE
You might not expect to find the Sea Wife in the heart of Kent, but that
is where I found her, in a mean street, in the poor quarter of Maidstone.
In her window she had no sign of lodgings to let, and persuasion was
necessary before she could bring herself to let me sleep in her front
room.
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