Produced by Charles Aldarondo, Tiffany Vergon, Charles
Kirschner, Charles Franks, and the Online Distributed
Proofreading Team
Author of "The Wings of the Morning," "The Pillar of Light," "The
Captain of the Kansas" etc.
"By the Prophet!" he exclaimed, "I am overjoyed at seeing you"
"I don't want your charity, I want work!"
"Let your prisoner go, Mr. King"
"Good morning, Mr. King," she cried
"You need no promise from me, Miss Fenshawe"
The Arab appraised Royson with critical eye
He did not dare meet the glance suddenly turned upon him
"Go, Dick, but come back to me in safety"
At ten o'clock on a morning in October—a dazzling, sunlit morningafter hours of wind-lashed rain—a young man hurried out of VictoriaStation and dodged the traffic and the mud-pools on his way towardsVictoria Street. Suddenly he was brought to a stand by an unusualspectacle. A procession of the "unemployed" was sauntering out ofVauxhall Bridge Road into the more important street. Being men ofleisure, the processionists moved slowly. The more alert pedestrian whohad just emerged from the station did not grumble at the delay—he eventurned it to advantage by rolling and lighting a cigarette. The raggedregiment filed past, a soiled, frayed, hopeless-looking gang. Threehundred men had gathered on the south side of the river, and weremarching to join other contingents on the Thames Embankment, whencesome thousands of them would be shepherded by policemen upNorthumberland Avenue, across Trafalgar Square, and so, by way of LowerRegent Street and Piccadilly, to Hyde Park, where they would hoarselycheer every demagogue who blamed the Government for their miseries.
London, like Richard Royson, would stand on the pavement and watchthem. Like him, it would drop a few coins into the collecting boxesrattled under its nose, and grin at the absurd figure cut by a very fatman who waddled notably, among his leaner brethren, for hunger andsubstance are not often found so strangely allied. But, having salvedits conscience by giving, and gratified its sarcastic humor bylaughing, London took thought, perhaps, when it read the strange deviceon the banner carried by this Vauxhall contingent. "Curse yourcharity—we want work," said the white letters, staring threateninglyout of a wide strip of red cotton. There was a brutal force in thephr