It was a night
of ghosts.
There stood a man who had lost one arm, earnestly pumping
bilge-music out of an accordion with the other, holding it to his
body with the stump. There was a woman, pale with hunger and gin,
three match-boxes in one extended hand, and the other holding a baby
to her breast. As we looked, the poor baby let go its hold, turned
its little head, and smiled a wan, shrivelled, old-fashioned smile
in our faces.
Another happy baby, you see, Mr. Gordon,' said Falconer. 'A child,
fresh from God, finds its heaven where no one else would. The devil
could drive woman out of Paradise; but the devil himself cannot
drive the Paradise out of a woman.'
'What can be done for them?' I said, and at the moment, my eye fell
upon a row of little children, from two to five years of age, seated
upon the curb-stone.
They were chattering fast, and apparently carrying on some game, as
happy as if they had been in the fields.
'Wouldn't you like to take all those little grubby things, and put
them in a great tub and wash them clean?' I said.
'They'd fight like spiders,' rejoined Falconer.
'They're not fighting now.'
'Then don't make them. It would be all useless. The probability is
that you would only change the forms of the various evils, and
possibly for worse. You would buy all that man's glue-lizards, and
that man's three-foot rules, and that man's dog-collars and chains,
at three times their value, that they might get more drink than
usual, and do nothing at all for their living to-morrow.
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