I sat down beside an old, old crone, so frail it seemed a miracle that she could bear her slight body on her attenuated limbs. Her face was of the colour that comes of long years of bad feeding and ill-sleeping, but her eyes were bright and her mouth had not lost its humour. She had a wide knowledge of London’s lodging houses and told me that on a Sunday it was hard to get in anywhere.

“I’d advise you to go to Hanbury Street, Whitechapel,” she said, “to the Salvation Army Shelter. If they’ve got a bed, you’ll get in there for fivepence.”

It did not sound alluring, but there was no choice. I could not face the streets the second night, and I got a district train to Whitechapel.