MY SECRET LIFE
will go through for the sake of seeing a woman‘s privates. At other times we saw a good deal. If it were a light night, we saw nothing. No one knew we went down at those hours, the workmen had gone, and the private staircase from the dwelling house at any time let us into the factory; from the factory we could go anywhere on the premises.
When we heard feet, or a rustle of petticoats over the grating, taking up the light we sometimes saw a white burn, a split gaping like a dog with its throat cut, and a stream of water splashing from it. We never used to move, but sooner than not see it all and as well as possible, let the stream come over us. Sometimes two women came together; sometimes we could hear to our mortification that they were pissing on the pavement close by, without coming over the grating. We could often hear their conversation. Now and then a woman shit down the grating, we used to Watch the turds squeeze out with a fart or two, with great amusement. Once a man did the same, we saw prick, balls, and turd, all hanging down together, we could not help laughing, and OH he shuffled as if he had been shot. He must have heard us.
There was one woman whose face we never saw, but who came and pissed over a grating so regularly every evening, and sometimes twice; that we knew her arse perfectly. We lost sight of her and used to won- der if she had found us out, for she finished one night with such a loud fart, that we laughed out,—and she must have heard us.
One night half a dozen ladies came, we knew they were ladies by their manner and conversation, which
we could hear perfectly, there being no carriage traffic
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