But he didn't. He stood still against a friendly wall, and suffered. He straightened his dress. He touched sore places with a tender solicitude. His head was racking. All his limbs ached and burned. He desired nothing but the cold sheets of his bed and a bottle of embrocation. He swore at the fog, with a fine relish for the colour of sounds. He swore at things that were in no way responsible for his misfortune. Somewhere, he conjectured, in warmth and safety, Henry Wiggin, the copper's nark, was perfectly enjoying his supper of fried fish and 'taters and stout. And then, over the sad, yellow night, faint and sweet and far away, as the memory of childhood, came a still small voice-- "No, but 'e 'ad a rummy 'at on, eh?" A DOWN-STREAM NIGHT BLACKWALL _WEST INDIA DOCK ROAD_ _Black man--white man--brown man--yellow man-- All the lousy Orient loafing on the quay: Hindoo, Dago, Jap, Malay, and Chinaman Dipping into London from the great green sea!_ _Black man--white man--brown man--yellow man-- Pennyfields and Poplar and Chinatown for me! Stately-moving cut-throats and many-coloured mysteries, Never were such lusty things for London lads to see!_ _On the evil twilight--rose and star and silver-- Steals a song that long ago in Singapore they sang: Fragrant of spices, of incense and opium, Cinnamon and aconite, the betel and the bhang._ _Three miles straight lies lily-clad Belgravia, Thin-lipped ladies and padded men and pale. But here are turbaned princes and velvet-glancing gentlemen, Tom-tom and sharp knife and salt-caked sail._ _Then get you down to Limehouse, by riggings, wharf, and smoke-stack, Glamour, dirt, and perfume, and dusky men and gold; For down in lurking Limehouse there's the blue moon of the Orient-- Lamps for young Aladdins, and bowies for the bold!_ A DOWN-STREAM NIGHT BLACKWALL Tide was at flood, and below Limehouse Hole the waters thrashed the wharves with malice. The hour was late, but life ran high in those parts. Against the savage purple of the night a few wisps of rigging and some gruff funnels stood up in East and West India Docks.