‘Another quid,’ bawled the woman after me, as I turned away, ’another quid, an’ then I’ll tell you somethink to your awantage.  Out with it, and don’t spile a good mind.’

What I did and said that morning as I wandered through the streets of London in that state of tearless despair and mad unnatural merriment, one hour of which will age a man more than a decade of any woe that can find a voice in lamentations, remains a blank in my memory.

I found myself at the corner of Essex Street, staring across the Strand, which, even yet, had scarcely awoke into life.  Presently I felt my sleeve pulled, and heard the woman’s voice.

‘You didn’t know as I was cluss behind you all the while, a-watchin’ your tantrums.  Never spile a good mind, my young swell.  Out with t’other quid, an’ then I’ll tell you somethink about my pootty darter as is on my mind.’

I gave her money, but got nothing from her save more incoherent lies and self-contradictions about the time of the funeral.

’Point out the spot where she used to stand and beg.  No, don’t stand on it yourself, but point it out.’

’This is the werry spot.  She used to hold out her matches like this ‘ere,—­my darter used,—­an’ say texes out o’ the Bible.  She loved beggin’, pore dear!’

‘Texts from the Bible?’ I said, staggering under a new thought that seemed to strike through me like a bar of hot metal.  ’Can you remember any one of them?’

‘It was allus the same tex’, an’ I ought to remember it well enough, for I’ve ‘eerd it times enough.  She wur like you for poll-parritin’ ways, and used to say the same thing over an’ over ag’in.  It wur allus, “Let his children be wagabones and beg their bread; let them seek it also out of desolate places.”  Why, you’re at it ag’in—­gurnin’ ag’in.  You must be drunk.’

Again there came upon me the involuntary laughter of heart-agony at its tensest.  I cried aloud:  ’Faith and Love!  Faith and Love!  That farce of the Raxton crypt with the great-grandmother’s fool on his knees shall be repeated for the delight of Nin-ki-gal and the Danish skeletons and the ancestral ghosts from Hugh the Crusader down to the hero of the knee-caps and mittens; and there shall be a dance of death and a song, and the burden shall be—­

       As flies to wanton boys are we to the gods: 
       They kill us for their sport.’

Misery had made me a maniac at last; my brain swam, and the head of the woman seemed to be growing before me—­seemed once more to be transfigured before me into a monstrous mountainous representation of an awful mockery-goddess and columbine-queen, down whose merry wrinkles were flowing tears that were at once tears of Olympian laughter and tears of the oceanic misery of Man.

‘Well, you are a rum un, and no mistake,’ said the woman.  ’But who the dickens are you? That’s what licks me.  Who the dickens are you?  Howsomever, if you’ll fork out another quid, the Queen of the Jokes’ll tell you some’ink to your awantage, an’ if you won’t fork out the Queen o’ the Jokes is mum.’