Among those who carry the banner, Green Park has the reputation of opening its gates earlier than the other parks, and at quarter-past four in the morning, I, and many more, entered Green Park.  It was raining again, but they were worn out with the night’s walking, and they were down on the benches and asleep at once.  Many of the men stretched out full length on the dripping wet grass, and, with the rain falling steadily upon them, were sleeping the sleep of exhaustion.

And now I wish to criticise the powers that be.  They are the powers, therefore they may decree whatever they please; so I make bold only to criticise the ridiculousness of their decrees.  All night long they make the homeless ones walk up and down.  They drive them out of doors and passages, and lock them out of the parks.  The evident intention of all this is to deprive them of sleep.  Well and good, the powers have the power to deprive them of sleep, or of anything else for that matter; but why under the sun do they open the gates of the parks at five o’clock in the morning and let the homeless ones go inside and sleep?  If it is their intention to deprive them of sleep, why do they let them sleep after five in the morning?  And if it is not their intention to deprive them of sleep, why don’t they let them sleep earlier in the night?

In this connection, I will say that I came by Green Park that same day, at one in the afternoon, and that I counted scores of the ragged wretches asleep in the grass.  It was Sunday afternoon, the sun was fitfully appearing, and the well-dressed West Enders, with their wives and progeny, were out by thousands, taking the air.  It was not a pleasant sight for them, those horrible, unkempt, sleeping vagabonds; while the vagabonds themselves, I know, would rather have done their sleeping the night before.

And so, dear soft people, should you ever visit London Town, and see these men asleep on the benches and in the grass, please do not think they are lazy creatures, preferring sleep to work.  Know that the powers that be have kept them walking all the night long, and that in the day they have nowhere else to sleep.

CHAPTER XI—­THE PEG

But, after carrying the banner all night, I did not sleep in Green Park when morning dawned.  I was wet to the skin, it is true, and I had had no sleep for twenty-four hours; but, still adventuring as a penniless man looking for work, I had to look about me, first for a breakfast, and next for the work.

During the night I had heard of a place over on the Surrey side of the Thames, where the Salvation Army every Sunday morning gave away a breakfast to the unwashed. (And, by the way, the men who carry the banner are unwashed in the morning, and unless it is raining they do not have much show for a wash, either.) This, thought I, is the very thing—­breakfast in the morning, and then the whole day in which to look for work.