Sociology, as I had dabbled in literature, art, and science, though without idea or method. Now I determined to set about it in earnest. And, as in all forms of the acquirement of knowledge two things are necessary—namely, thought and experience, and those come to mean good books and seeing things with your own eyes—I determined that I would go into the East End of London, and still more the South, to study my question on the spot. Well, I had soon the very best opportunities. The religious people—the Salvation Army, and our own Church of England mission workers—received me cordially; and so, after a little suspicion, did the more or less secularising Socialists and Labour propagandists. For I was ready with both hard work and hard cash (up to a reasonable extent), and the combination is too powerful an one to be long resisted. That was five years ago, and I stopped at it for a year without the break of a day, and should have stopped probably for twice as long but for a series of unexpected events.'
'Yes?' said Hastings.
'My father, mother, and brother all died within a few months. The first death I was prepared for; perhaps, even, for the second (for my mother had recently suffered from a severe illness, and she was deeply attached to my father); but my brother's
