the pinched passage, the
sound of your tread proves the whole fabric a thing of lath and sand.
The ceilings, the walls, confess themselves neither water-tight nor
air-tight. Whatever you touch is at once found to be sham.

In the kitchen of one of these houses, at two o'clock on a Saturday
afternoon in September, three young people were sitting down to the
dinner-table: a girl of nearly fourteen, her sister, a year younger,
and their brother not yet eleven. All were decently dressed, but very
poorly; a glance at them, and you knew that in this house there was
little money to spend on superfluities. The same impression was
produced by the appointments of the kitchen, which was disorderly, too,
and spoke neglect of the scrubbing-brush. As for the table, it was ill
laid and worse supplied. The meal was to consist of the fag-end of a
shoulder of mutton, some villainously cooked potatoes (_a l'Anglaise_)
and bread.

'Oh, I can't eat this rot again!' cried the boy, making a dig with his
fork at the scarcely clad piece of bone. 'I shall have bread and
cheese. Lug the cheese out, Annie!'

'No, you won't,' replied the elder girl, in a disagreeable voice.
'You'll eat this or go without.'

She had an unpleasing appearance. Her face was very thin, her lips
pinched sourly together, her eyes furtive, hungry, malevolent. Her
movements were awkward and impatient, and a morbid nervousness kept her
constantly starting, with a stealthy look here or there.

'I shall have the cheese if I like!' shouted the boy, a very
ill-conditioned youngster, whose face seemed to have been damaged in
recent conflict. His clothes were dusty, and his hair stood up like
stubble.

'Hold your row, Tom,' said the younger girl, who was quiet and had the
look of an invalid. 'It's always you begins. Besides, you can't have
cheese; there's only a little bit, and Sidney said he was going to make
his dinner of it to-day.'

'Of course--selfish beast!'

'Selfish! Now just listen to that, Amy! when he said it just that we
mightn't be afraid to finish the meat.'

Amy said nothing, but began to hack fragments off the bone.

'Put some aside for father first,' continued Annie, holding a plate.

'Father be blowed!' cried Tom. 'You just give me that first cut. Give
it here, Annie, or I'll crack you on the head!'

As he struggled for the plate, Amy bent forward and hit his arm
violently with the handle of the knife. This was the signal for a
general scrimmage,