day.  What then?  The law sez I can’t get in another casual ward that night less’n ten miles distant.  Have to hurry an’ walk to be there in time that day.  What chance does that give me to look for a job?  S’pose I don’t walk.  S’pose I look for a job?  In no time there’s night come, an’ no bed.  No sleep all night, nothin’ to eat, what shape am I in the mornin’ to look for work?  Got to make up my sleep in the park somehow” (the vision of Christ’s Church, Spitalfield, was strong on me) “an’ get something to eat.  An’ there I am!  Old, down, an’ no chance to get up.”

“Used to be a toll-gate ’ere,” said the Carter.  “Many’s the time I’ve paid my toll ‘ere in my cartin’ days.”

“I’ve ’ad three ’a’penny rolls in two days,” the Carpenter announced, after a long pause in the conversation.  “Two of them I ate yesterday, an’ the third to-day,” he concluded, after another long pause.

“I ain’t ‘ad anything to-day,” said the Carter.  “An’ I’m fagged out.  My legs is hurtin’ me something fearful.”

“The roll you get in the ‘spike’ is that ’ard you can’t eat it nicely with less’n a pint of water,” said the Carpenter, for my benefit.  And, on asking him what the “spike” was, he answered, “The casual ward.  It’s a cant word, you know.”

But what surprised me was that he should have the word “cant” in his vocabulary, a vocabulary that I found was no mean one before we parted.

I asked them what I might expect in the way of treatment, if we succeeded in getting into the Poplar Workhouse, and between them I was supplied with much information.  Having taken a cold bath on entering, I would be given for supper six ounces of bread and “three parts of skilly.”  “Three parts” means three-quarters of a pint, and “skilly” is a fluid concoction of three quarts of oatmeal stirred into three buckets and a half of hot water.

“Milk and sugar, I suppose, and a silver spoon?” I queried.

“No fear.  Salt’s what you’ll get, an’ I’ve seen some places where you’d not get any spoon.  ’Old ‘er up an’ let ’er run down, that’s ’ow they do it.”

“You do get good skilly at ’Ackney,” said the Carter.

“Oh, wonderful skilly, that,” praised the Carpenter, and each looked eloquently at the other.

“Flour an’ water at St. George’s in the East,” said the Carter.

The Carpenter nodded.  He had tried them all.

“Then what?” I demanded

And I was informed that I was sent directly to bed.  “Call you at half after five in the mornin’, an’ you get up an’ take a ’sluice’—­if there’s any soap.  Then breakfast, same as supper, three parts o’ skilly an’ a six-ounce loaf.”

“’Tisn’t always six ounces,” corrected the Carter.

“‘Tisn’t, no; an’ often that sour you can ’ardly eat it.  When first I started I couldn’t eat the skilly nor the bread, but now I can eat my own an’ another man’s portion.”