Here were no prostitutes, no office cleaners. The women were street vendors in the poorer parts; for in this walk of life, as in others, there are lights and shades among the ragged and forlorn, and few of the lodgers gathered together could have appeared at Piccadilly Circus or in Shaftesbury Avenue without being run in. There was one flower woman, young, among them. She did not belong to the noble army of flower girls with their admirable organisation and sturdy trade union principles. She had no recognised pitch, but made her pence by appeal to the charitable, who, judging by her hungry look, did not wholeheartedly respond. Like the rest, her feet were tragically ill-shod, in large and shapeless boots, originally meant for a man, held together by string instead of laces, with a hiatus between the upper and the sole, through which there showed a grimy foot. She wore one of those strange garments that go by the name of ulster; they appear to come into the world in a state of malnutrition and decay.