Page:London - The People of the Abyss.djvu/189

Rh together in colossal debauch. And on every side is rising the favorite song of the Coronation:—

The rain is pouring down in torrents. Up the street come troops of the auxiliaries, black Africans and yellow Asiatics, beturbaned and befezed, and coolies swinging along with machine guns and mountain batteries on their heads, and the bare feet of all, in quick rhythm, going slish, slish, slish through the pavement mud. The public houses empty by magic, and the swarthy allegiants are cheered by their British brothers, who return at once to the carouse.

"And how did you like the procession, mate?" I asked an old man on a bench in Green Park.

Ow did I like it? A bloody good chawnce, sez I to myself, for a sleep, wi' all the coppers aw'y, so I turned into the corner there, along wi' fifty others. But I couldn't sleep, a-lyin' there 'ungry an' thinkin' 'ow I'd worked all the years o' my life an' now 'ad no plyce to rest my 'ead; an' the music comin to me, an' the cheers an' cannon, till I got almost a hanarchist an' wanted to blow out the brains o' the Lord Chamberlain."