He used to go out looking for work every day--and there was the usual story, of course, of pawning or selling all their possessions--odd jobs--increasing starvation--and so on.

Meanwhile, _his_ only pleasure--he was ten--was to go with his sister after school to look at two shops in the East India Dock Road--one a draper's with a 'Christmas Bazaar'-- the other a confectioner's.

He declares it made him not more starved, but less, to look at the goodies and the cakes; they _imagined_ eating them; but they were both too sickly, he thinks, to be really hungry.

As for the bazaar, with its dolls and toys, and its Father Christmas, and bright lights, they both thought it paradise.

They used to flatten their noses against the glass; sometimes a shopman drove them away; but they came back and back.