“One night I slept under an arch.  Next morning I heard the loud sound of factory whistles.  Everybody was aroused.  Some of the people lying around were going to work there; and I thought I might get a job also, so I followed them.  On the way we came to a coffee stall, and as I was nearly fainting with hunger, I stood in front of it to get the smell of the coffee and fresh bread, for that does a fellow a heap of good when he’s got nothing in his stomach.  A man with a square paper hat on looked at me, and said: 

“’What’s up, little ‘un?’

“I said nothing was up except that I was hungry.  Then he stepped up to the coffee-man and gave him some money, and I got a bun and a mug of coffee.  It seemed to me that I had never been so happy in all my life as with the feeling I got from that bun and coffee—­but then, I had been a good many days without food.

“There was no work to be had at the factory near the bridge, so I went back to the docks.  At night I slept with a lot of other fellows under a big canvas cover that kept the rain from some goods lying at the docks ready to be shipped.  I think there must have been as many fellows under that big cover as there were piles of goods.  It was while there that I thought for the first time very seriously about my mother, and I began to cry.  The other fellows heard me and kicked me from under the cover; but that did not help my crying, however.  I smothered a good deal of it and walked up and down by the side of the river all night.  My eyes were swollen, and I was feeling very badly when a sailor noticed me.  He had been to sea and had just returned home.  He talked a lot about life on a ship—­said if he were a boy, he would not hang around the docks; he would go to sea.

“‘Where’s yer folks?’ he said to me.

“‘Ain’t got none,’ I said.

“‘Where d’ye live, then?’

“‘I don’t live nowheres.’

“‘Shiver my timbers,’ he said, ’ye must have an anchorage in some of these parts?  Where d’ye sleep nights?’

“‘Wherever I be when night comes on,’ I told him.

“The sailor laughed, and said I was a lucky dog to be at home anywheres.

“’See here, young ‘un,’ the sailor said, ’I’ve been up agin it in these parts myself when I was a kid, and up agin it stiff, too; and there ain’t nothing around here for the likes of ye.  Take my advice and get out o’ here.  There’s a big ship down here by the docks—­Helvetia.  Sneak aboard, get into a scupper or a barrel or something, and ship for America.’

“The idea of ‘sneaking aboard’ got very big in my mind, and I went to Woolwich where the ship was lying; and I met a lot of other boys who were trying to sneak aboard, too.  I thought my chances were slim, but I was going to have a try, anyway.  These boys that were thinking of the same thing, tried to get me to do a lot of things that I knew were not right.  There was stuff to steal and they knew how I could get it.  There were kind-hearted people around, and they wanted me to beg.  When they said the ship was going to sail, I got aboard and hid on the lower deck.