In Thrums Street, as it ought to have been called, herded¹ at least one-half of the Thrums folk in London, and they formed a colony, of which the grocer at the corner sometimes said wrathfully that not a member would give sixpence for anything except Bibles or whiskey. In the streets one could only tell they were not Londoners by their walk, the flagstones having no grip for their feet, or, if they had come south late in life, by their backs, which they carried at the angle on which webs are most easily supported. When mixing with the world they talked the English tongue, which came out of them as broad as if it had been squeezed through a mangle², but when the day's work was done, it was only a few of the giddier striplings that remained Londoners. For the majority there was no raking the streets after diversion, they spent the hour or two before bed-time in reproducing the life of Thrums. Few of them knew much of London except the nearest way between this street and their work, and their most interesting visitor was a Presbyterian minister, most of whose congregation lived in much more fashionable parts, but they were almost exclusively servant girls, and when descending⁴ area-steps to visit them he had been challenged often and jocularly by policemen, which perhaps was what gave him a subdued⁵ and furtive⁶ appearance.