roken sieve; rags of faded color, lay here in the gutter
undisturbed, the jetsam of a deserted beach.

"Here we are," said Barnes. "Here's Leppard Street that you've been so
anxious to see."

"It looks rather exciting," Michael commented.

"Oh, it's the last act of a Drury Lane melodrama I don't think.
Exciting?" Barnes repeated. "You know, Fane, there's something wrong
with you. If you think this is exciting, you'd go raving mad when I
showed you some of the places where I've lived. Well, here we are,
anyhow. Number One--the corner house."

They walked up the steps which were gradually scaling in widening
ulcers of decay: the handle of the bell-pull hung limply forward like a
parched tongue: and the iron railings of a basement strewn with potato
parings were flaked with rust, and here and there decapitated.

Barnes opened the door.

"We'll take your bag up to my room first, and then we'll go downstairs
and talk to Ma Cleghorne about your room, that is if you don't change
your mind when you've seen the inside."

Michael had no time to notice Barnes' room very much. But vaguely he saw
a rickety bed with a patchwork counterpane and frowzy recesses masked by
cheap cretonnes in a pattern of disemboweled black and crimson fruits.
After that glimpse they went down again over the grayish staircarpet
that was worn to the very filaments. Barnes shouted to the landlady in
the basement.

"She'll have a fit if she hears me calling down to her," he said to
Michael. "You see, just lately I've been very anxious to avoid meeting
her."

He jingled with satisfaction the sovereigns in his pocket.

They descended into the gloom that smelt of damp cloths and the stale
soapiness of a sink. They peeped into the front room, as they went by:
here a man in shirt-sleeves was lying under the scattered sheets of a
Sunday paper upon a bed that gave an effect of almost oriental luxury,
so much was it overloaded with mattresses and coverlets. Indeed; the
whole room seemed clogged with woolly stuffs, and the partial twilight
of its subterranean position added to the impression of airlessness. It
was as if these quilted chairs and heavy hairy curtains had suffocated
everything else.

"That's Cleghorne," said Barnes. "I reckon he'd sleep Rip van Winkle
barmy."

"What's he do?" whispered Michael, as they turned down the passage.

"He snores for a living, he does," said Barnes.

They entered the kitchen, and through the dim light Michael