There were mutton kidneys,
and sausages, and broiled ham, and fried beef and onions; more like
a dinner nor a breakfast. Many on our chaps though, I could see,
could eat but little. Th' food stuck in their throats when they
thought o' them at home, wives and little ones, as had, maybe at
that very time, nought to eat. Well, after breakfast, we were all
set to walk in procession, and a time it took to put us in order,
two and two, and the petition, as was yards long, carried by the
foremost pairs. The men looked grave enough, yo may be sure and
such a set of thin, wan, wretched-looking chaps as they were!"
"Yourself is none to boast on."
"Ay, but I were fat and rosy to many a one. Well, we walked on and
on through many a street, much the same as Deansgate. We had to
walk slowly, slowly, for th' carriages an' cabs as thronged th'
streets. I thought by-and-bye we should maybe get clear on 'em, but
as the streets grew wider they grew worse, and at last we were
fairly blocked up at Oxford Street. We getten across it after a
while though, and my eyes! the grand streets we were in then!
They're sadly puzzled how to build houses though in London; there'd
be an opening for a good steady master builder there, as know'd his
business.
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