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Page 51

| ignored the lean, hungry-eyed children who came to grab at him. He kicked dogs aside and spat at beggars as they rattled their empty tins at him. |

| He looked from side to side, glad that he had risen above living like this long ago. He was from this sort of environment in London. It was hardly any different here. In a grubby little hut in Canvas Town, a person could buy a half pint of dirty coffee for a couple of cents, along with, as a chalked notice said, "Plenty Bread." |

| Other huts advertised "Beds to Let." For as little as ten cents a night one could hire a canvas stretcher out in the open, with the assured prospect of sleeping within a couple of feet of a drunk, a lunatic, a garroter, or a hard-working harlot. |

| A part-time barber, with a crudely painted red-and-white pole jutting out like a crazy bowsprit from the lintel of his mud-and-wattle hut, undertook to set razors, draw teeth, and let blood. He guaranteed that in his absence his wife would look after any hapless customers. |

| A little farther along was a timber shanty leaning perilously to one side and swarming with blowflies. A proud placard promised, "Take in joints for baking." |

| Another placard advertised an eating house"Hot Soups and Stews Always On Hand!" |

| And then Stanford's heart raced faster when he gazed upon a grass hut set back from the other establishments. He had frequented this dwelling since his first day in Melbourne, and now he could not think of leaving without the woman he had grown to depend on for his carnal needs. Though a |

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