As he rested in his
corner, he was conscious of the sharp edge of the narrow stone ledge
on which he was sitting and the thin iron railings that pressed into
his back; he smelt the evil smell of hot London, and the soapy odour
of the washing; he saw the glitter of the dust, and the noises of the
place beat harshly upon his ears, but he could find no meaning in it
all. Life spoke to him with a hundred tongues, and all the while he
was longing for silence. To the older inhabitants of the tenements he
seemed a morbid little boy, unhappily too delicate for sense to
be safely knocked into him; his fellow-children would have ignored him
completely if he had not had strange fancies that made interesting
stories and sometimes inspired games. On the whole, George was lonely
without knowing what loneliness meant.
All day long the voice of London throbbed up beyond the bars, and
George would regard the chimneys and the housetops and the section of
lively street that fell within his range with his small, keen eyes,
and wonder why the world did not forthwith crumble into silent,
peaceful dust, instead of groaning and quivering in continual unrest.
But when twilight fell and the children were tired of playing, they
would gather round him in his corner by the tank and ask him to tell
them stories. This tank was large and open and held rain water for the
use of the tenants, and originally it had been cut off from the rest
of the roof by some special railings of its own; but two of the
railings had been broken, and now the children could creep through and
sit round the tank at dusk, like Eastern villagers round the village
well.
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