'Do you mean to say that I can't get out of here?' I demanded.'That you will keep me here against my will?'
'Yes,' he snorted.
I do not know what might have happened, for I was waxing indignant myself; but the 'congregation' had 'piped' the situation, and he drew me over to a corner of the room, and then into another room.Here he again demanded my reasons for wishing to go.
'I want to go,' I said, 'because I wish to look for work over in Stepney, and every hour lessens my chance of finding work.It is now twenty-five minutes to twelve.I did not think when I came in that it would take so long to get a breakfast.'
'You 'ave business, eh?' he sneered.'A man of business you are, eh?
Then wot did you come 'ere for?'
'I was out all night, and I needed a breakfast in order to strengthen me to find work.That is why I came here.'
'A nice thing to do,' he went on, in the same sneering manner.'Aman with business shouldn't come 'ere.You've tyken some poor man's breakfast 'ere this morning, that's wot you've done.'
Which was a lie, for every mother's son of us had come in.
Now I submit, was this Christian-like, or even honest?- after Ihad plainly stated that I was homeless and hungry, and that I wished to look for work, for him to call my looking for work 'business', to call me therefore a business man, and to draw the corollary that a man of business, and well off, did not require a charity breakfast, and that by taking a charity breakfast I had robbed some hungry waif who was not a man of business.
I kept my temper, but I went over the facts again and clearly and concisely demonstrated to him how unjust he was and how he had perverted the facts.As I manifested no signs of backing down (and Iam sure my eyes were beginning to snap), he led me to the rear of the building, where, in an open court, stood a tent.In the same sneering tone he informed a couple of privates standing there that ''ere is a fellow that 'as business an' 'e wants to go before services.'
They were duly shocked, of course, and they looked unutterable horror while he went into the tent and brought out the major.Still in the same sneering manner, laying particular stress on the 'business,' he brought my case before the commanding officer.The major was of a different stamp of man.I liked him as soon as I saw him, and to him I stated my case in the same fashion as before.
'Didn't you know you had to stay for services?' he asked.
'Certainly not,' I answered, 'or I should have gone without my breakfast.You have no placards posted to that effect, nor was I so informed when I entered the place.'
He meditated a moment.'You can go,' he said.
It was twelve o'clock when I gained the street, and I couldn't quite make up my mind whether I had been in the army or in prison.The day was half gone, and it was a far fetch to Stepney.And besides, it was Sunday, and why should even a starving man look for work on Sunday? Furthermore, it was my judgment that I had done a hard night's work walking the streets, and a hard day's work getting my breakfast; so I disconnected myself from my working hypothesis of a starving young man in search of employment, hailed a bus, and climbed aboard.
After a shave and a bath, with my clothes all off, I got in between clean white sheets and went to sleep.It was six in the evening when I closed my eyes.When they opened again, the clocks were striking nine next morning.I had slept fifteen straight hours.And as I lay there drowsily, my mind went back to the seven hundred unfortunates I had left waiting for services.No bath, no shave for them, no clean white sheets and all clothes off, and fifteen hours straight sleep.Services over, it was the weary streets again, the problem of a crust of bread ere night, and the long sleepless night in the streets, and the pondering of the problem of how to obtain a crust at dawn.
