Then the thing happened.  He worked for a Mr. Beck, builder, and lived in one of his master’s houses in Trundley Road.  Mr. Beck was thrown from his trap and killed.  The thing was an unruly horse, and, as I say, it happened.  Cavilla had to seek fresh employment and find another house.

This occurred eighteen months ago.  For eighteen months he fought the big fight.  He got rooms in a little house in Batavia Road, but could not make both ends meet.  Steady work could not be obtained.  He struggled manfully at casual employment of all sorts, his wife and four children starving before his eyes.  He starved himself, and grew weak, and fell ill.  This was three months ago, and then there was absolutely no food at all.  They made no complaint, spoke no word; but poor folk know.  The housewives of Batavia Road sent them food, but so respectable were the Cavillas that the food was sent anonymously, mysteriously, so as not to hurt their pride.

The thing had happened.  He had fought, and starved, and suffered for eighteen months.  He got up one September morning, early.  He opened his pocket-knife.  He cut the throat of his wife, Hannah Cavilla, aged thirty-three.  He cut the throat of his first-born, Frank, aged twelve.  He cut the throat of his son, Walter, aged eight.  He cut the throat of his daughter, Nellie, aged four.  He cut the throat of his youngest-born, Ernest, aged sixteen months.  Then he watched beside the dead all day until the evening, when the police came, and he told them to put a penny in the slot of the gas-meter in order that they might have light to see.

Frank Cavilla stood in court, dressed in a much worn grey suit, and wearing no collar.  He was a good-looking man, with a mass of black hair, dark, expressive eyes, delicately chiselled nose and chin, and wavy, fair moustache.

CHAPTER XXIII—­THE CHILDREN

   “Where home is a hovel, and dull we grovel,
   Forgetting the world is fair.”

There is one beautiful sight in the East End, and only one, and it is the children dancing in the street when the organ-grinder goes his round.  It is fascinating to watch them, the new-born, the next generation, swaying and stepping, with pretty little mimicries and graceful inventions all their own, with muscles that move swiftly and easily, and bodies that leap airily, weaving rhythms never taught in dancing school.

I have talked with these children, here, there, and everywhere, and they struck me as being bright as other children, and in many ways even brighter.  They have most active little imaginations.  Their capacity for projecting themselves into the realm of romance and fantasy is remarkable.  A joyous life is romping in their blood.  They delight in music, and motion, and colour, and very often they betray a startling beauty of face and form under their filth and rags.