The boy came up to a big porch with four pillars, and stepped in to rest
and reflect. The long tunnels of smoking lights which had receded down
the streets were not to be seen from there, and so he knew that he was
in a square. It would be Soho Square, but whether he was on the south or
east of it he could not tell, and consequently he was at a loss to know
which way to turn. A great silence had fallen over everything, and only
the sobbing nostrils of the cab-horses seemed to be audible in the
hollow air.
He was very cold. The snow had got into his shoes, and through the rents
in his cross-gartered stockings. His red waistcoat wanted buttons, and
he could feel that his shirt was wet. He tried to shake the snow off by
stamping, but it clung to his velveteens. His numbed fingers could
scarcely hold the cage, which was also full of snow. By the light coming
from a fanlight over the door in the porch he looked at his squirrel.
The little thing was trembling pitifully in its icy bed, and he took it
out and breathed on it to warm it, and then put it in his bosom. The
sound of a child's voice laughing and singing came to him from within
the house, muffled by the walls and the door. Across the white vapour
cast outward from the fanlight he could see nothing but the crystal
snowflakes falling wearily.
He grew dizzy, and sat down by one of the pillars. After a while a
shiver passed along his spine, and then he became warm and felt sleepy.
A church clock struck nine, and he started up with a guilty feeling, but
his limbs were stiff and he sank back again, blew two or three breaths
on to the squirrel inside his waistcoat, and fell into a doze. As he
dropped off into unconsciousness he seemed to see the big, cheerless
house, almost destitute of furniture, where he lived with thirty or
forty other boys. They trooped in with their organs and accordions,
counted out their coppers to a man with a clipped moustache, who was
blowing whiffs of smoke from a long, black cigar, with a straw through
it, and then sat down on forms to eat their plates of macaroni and
cheese. The man was not in good temper to-night, and he was shouting at
some who were coming in late and at others who were sharing their supper
with the squirrels that nestled in their bosoms, or the monkeys, in red
jacket and fez, that perched upon their shoulders. The boy was perfectly
unconscious by this time, and the child within the house was singing
away as if her little breast was a cage of song-birds.