Page:MySecretLifeVol1(1888).djvu/207

MY SECRET LIFE I suppose the regulars did not like that, yet they often used the gratings for pissing down.

These sights did no occur all at once, I went home, stopped, returned, and so on; in the meanwhile not having women, I then frigged, left oﬁ, then took to it again, and so time went on. Fewer women came at last up the street, we imagined that with all our care, they had found out that people were beneath the grat- ings, and avoided them. The favorite place was the recess at the workmen’s door to the factory at which were two steps; we could hear but not see when a couple was there, we used then to go up into the fac- tory and listen at the door. Generally, feeling and frig- ging was only going on, bargaining for money ﬁrst. “Give me another shilling. Ohl your nails hurt. What a lot of hair you have. What a big onel Oh! I am coming! Don’t spend over my clothes," and so on, we heard at times.

Meanwhile there was either no servant at my home worthy of a stiﬁ one, or those who would not take one; and I had no alternative but to frig. Money my mother again kept from me. What I got, I sent to the poor girl Martha, who then had not got rid of her big belly; gay women I had fear of; devoured by desire to get into a woman again, I even looked long- ingly at the wife of the foreman who took charge of the house in which Henry lived, although she was ﬁfty. I recollect seeing her making my bed one morn- ing, and getting a cock-stand at the sight of the woman so near a place to lay down on. —200—