Up to the present I had encountered no officialdom and an entire absence of red tape. Anything less like the popular idea of such an institution it would be impossible to imagine. Places there are, blasphemous with the title of Home for Fallen Women, where the unmarried mother is preached at all day, and crucified at night on a hard mattress and a harder pillow. At Mare Street one moves in an atmosphere of spiritual freedom; the Salvation Army is not there to save your soul, but to help your body, and the degree of your morality or immorality is not taken into account. Nevertheless, I felt a little frightened when I entered the Staff Room. The adjutant, capable, and brainy, told me to sit down and, I felt, sized up my character within two minutes. I told her that I had lost my bag in Liverpool and had arrived penniless in London. I told her also⁠—I was beginning to believe it myself⁠—that I had left my references in the stolen bag. My last situation had been in Liverpool.

“There must be somebody who will speak for you,” she said.

“There isn’t,” I answered. “The people at my last place went to America.”