He was not quite so clean as are the good boys in the religious magazines, and I have known a sailor to stop him in the street and reprove him for using indelicate language.
He and his mother and the baby, a sickly infant of about five months old, lived in a cellar down a turning off Three Colt Street.

I am not quite sure what had become of the father.

I rather think he had been "converted," and had gone off round the country on a preaching tour.

The lad earned six shillings a week as an errand-boy; and the mother stitched trousers, and on days when she was feeling strong and energetic would often make as much as tenpence, or even a shilling.

Unfortunately, there were days when the four bare walls would chase each other round and round, and the candle seem a faint speck of light, a very long way off; and the frequency of these caused the family income for the week to occasionally fall somewhat low.
One night the walls danced round quicker and quicker till they danced away altogether, and the candle shot up through the ceiling and became a star and the woman knew that it was time to put away her sewing.
"Jim," she said: she spoke very low, and the boy had to bend over her to hear, "if you poke about in the middle of the mattress you'll find a couple of pounds.