All in a garden fair; the simple story of three boys ... - University Library

ALL IX A GARDEN FAIR. 231
At the debating-club tliey lieard a most
amazing quantity of talk, but no one seemed to
liave taken any trouble to master his facts ; no
one knew anything. This ignorance to these
mistaken young men also appeared a specialite
of the East End. ]kit then they had never
attended the debates in the Ilouse.
In the chapels they heard everywhere the
same exhortations and expressions, in the same
"words, addressed to decent people in black
coats, who looked as if they were passing on
the discourse to some one else, because it did
not concern themselves.
They went to the ])ublic-houses and called
for glasses of beer, and they listened for the
Voice there. They heard a voice, to be sure,
a thick, hoarse voice, full of ugly words, and
certainly not a heavenly voice. Then befell
Allen something of the feeling which possessed
Dante when he gazed upon the souls of the
hapless lost, lie became haunted by crowds
of faces, processions of faces, an ocean of faces.
When he slept at nitdit these faces gazed ui)on