Many hours passed before I won to sleep.It was only seven in the evening, and the voices of children, in shrill outcry, playing in the street, continued till nearly midnight.The smell was frightful and sickening, while my imagination broke loose, and my skin crept and crawled till I was nearly frantic.Grunting, groaning, and snoring arose like the sounds emitted by some sea monster, and several times, afflicted by nightmare, one or another, by his shrieks and yells, aroused the lot of us.Toward morning I was awakened by a rat or some similar animal on my breast.In the quick transition from sleep to waking, before I was completely myself, I raised a shout to wake the dead.At any rate, I woke the living, and they cursed me roundly for my lack of manners.
But morning came, with a six o'clock breakfast of bread and skilly, which I gave away; and we were told off to our various tasks.Some were set to scrubbing and cleaning, others to picking oakum, and eight of us were convoyed across the street to the Whitechapel Infirmary, where we were set at scavenger work.This was the method by which we paid for our skilly and canvas, and I, for one, know that I paid in full many times over.
Though we had most revolting tasks to perform, our allotment was considered the best, and the other men deemed themselves lucky in being chosen to perform it.