Other changes I discovered were wrought in my
condition by my new garb. In crossing crowded
thoroughfares I found I had to be, if anything,
more lively in avoiding vehicles, and it was strik
ingly impressed upon me that my life had cheap
ened in direct ratio with my clothes. When before,
I inquired the way of a policeman, I was usually
asked, " Buss or ansom, sir ? " But now the query
became, " Walk or ride ? " Also, at the railway
stations it was the rule to be asked, " First or
second, sir ? " Now I was asked nothing, a third-
class ticket being shoved out to me as a matter of
course.

But there was compensation for it all. For the
first time I met the English lower classes face to
face, and knew them for what they were. When
loungers and workmen, on street corners and in
public houses, talked with me, they talked as one
man to another, and they talked as natural men
should talk, without the least idea of getting any
thing out of me for what they talked or the way
they talked.

And when at last I made into the East End, I
was gratified to find that the fear of the crowd no
longer haunted me. I had become a part of it.
The vast and malodorous sea had welled up and
over me, or I had slipped gently into it, and there
was nothing fearsome about it with the one
exception of the stoker s singlet.

[[15]]

p014 _ -chap- _ toc-1 _ p015w _ toc-2 _ +chap+ _ p016

v?