Vol. VI No. 1 - Modernist Magazines Project

EDITORIAL NOTES
the money slipping from his hand rolled into the very drain from which he
was retrieving the half-smoked cigarette. None the less "Nigger Face"
recovered quickly. It was a nasty shock and for half a minute he stared
despondently into the drain. He bemoaned his ill-luck and his expression
was wistful as he stepped back on to the pavement.
Just the resemblance of a smile curled his lips as he moved along, not
quite so energetically. His misfortune meant the loss of two meals. "Nigger
Face," though a vagrant, was, in his way, proud. The fact that this had
happened did not cause him to moan, indeed he could not help grinning as
he realised how ironical it was that, a half-smoked but much chewed fagend
should have cost him a shilling.
It was four o'clock, the infant children were crowding out of school
"Hullo ere's pi' 'Nigger Face.'" They surrounded the tramp crying "Sing
Nigger," "I ain't going to sing to yer, to-day kids, so there." and he trudged
off. They could see by his manner that something was wrong.
As the day wore on "Nigger Face" was craving for food, "Oh blast me
for a fool" he said, "I could have been filled with good things, and I'm as
empty as a starved cat."
Later during the evening he went into a tiny shop and with his coppers
bought some cake crumbs.
This purchase consisted of odds and ends of the four-penny a pound cake
that is made and sold in certain districts of London for the consumption of
children, who are attracted by its sun-like colour, and its amazing quantity
of currants. Cake crumbs were very popular, and "Nigger Face" loved them.
Then he went wrong. Willingly. He had figured out the result, and he was
longing for a bed to sleep in, just by way of change. As the old sandy grocer
stooped for the cake-crumb box which he kept under the counter next to the
paraffin can, "Nigger Face" without any deftness took a packet of matches
from the counter and proceeded to push them into his ragged pocket.
Sandy bobbing up, red in the face, began to storm at "Nigger Face." "Now
I've caught yer at last," he yelled, "them matches 'ave been going like that
ever since you first showed yer dirty mug in this 'ere shop, I'm going to send
for the copper, he'll learn yer." "Nigger Face" made no attempt to escape.
He experienced a certain elation which in the former years of his existence he
had never known. Something was going to happen.
The "cop" was perhaps a little rough in handling him seeing that he
went along so meekly. Arrived at their destination, the old familiar words
from Scripture flashed through his brain again and as he was conducted to
the cell, he breathed them aloud. "He's off his nut" said the escort, but
"Nigger Face" knew better.
KATHLEEN WELLARD.
[The following letter from a boy at St. Edward's School, Oxford,
will, we feel sure, be of interest to our readers. The best answer we