Page:A Child of the Jago - Arthur Morrison.djvu/20

 For on them that lay writhen and gasping on the pavement; on them that sat among them; on them that rolled and blasphemed in the lighted rooms; on every moving creature in this, the Old Jago, day and night, sleeping and waking, the third plague of Egypt, and more, lay unceasing.

The stifling air took a further oppression from the red sky. By the dark entrance to Jago Court a man arose, flinging out an oath, and sat with his head bowed in his hands.

"Ah-h-h-h-," he said. "I wish I was dead: an' kep' a cawfy shop." He looked aside from his hands to his neighbours, but Kiddo Cook's idea of heaven was no new thing, and the sole answer was a snort from a dozing man a yard away.

Kiddo Cook felt in his pocket and produced a pipe and a screw of paper. "This is a bleed'n' unsocial sort o' evenin' party, this is," he said. "An' 'ere's the on'y real in the mob with 'ardly 'arf a