saw the
landlady with her arms plunged into a steaming cauldron. Outside, two
trains roared past in contrary directions; the utensils shivered and
chinked; the ceiling was obscured by pendulous garments which exhaled a
moist odorousness; on the table a chine of bacon striated by the
carving-knife was black with heavy-winged flies.

"I've brought a new lodger, Mrs. Cleghorne," said Barnes.

"Have you brought your five weeks' rent owing?" she asked sourly.

He laid two pounds on the table, and Mrs. Cleghorne immediately cheered
up, if so positive an expression could be applied to a woman whose
angularities seemed to forbid any display of good-will. Michael thought
she looked rather like one of the withered nettles that overhung the
wall of the sunken yard outside the kitchen window.

"Well, he can have the top-floor back, or he can have the double rooms
on the ground floor which of course is unfurnished. Do you want me to
come up and show you?"

She inquired grudgingly and rubbed the palm of her hand slowly along her
sharp nose as if to express a doubtful willingness.

"Perhaps Mr. Cleghorne ..." Michael began.

"Mis-ter Cleghorne!" she interrupted scornfully, and immediately she
began to dry her arms vigorously on a roller-towel which creaked
continuously.

"Oh, I don't want to disturb him," said Michael.

"Disturb him!" she sneered. "Why, half Bedlam could drive through his
brains in a omnibus before he'd move a little finger to trouble hisself.
Yes," she shouted, "Yes!" Her voice mingling with the creak of the
roller seemed to be grating the air itself, and with every word it grew
more strident. "Why, the blessed house might burn before he'd even put
on his boots, let alone go and show anyone upstairs, though his wife can
work herself to the bone for him. Disturb him! Good job if anyone could
disturb him. If I found a regiment of soldiers in the larder, he'd only
grunt. Asthmatic! Yes, some people 'ud be very pleased to be asthmatic,
if they could lie snorting on a bed from morning to night."

Mrs. Cleghorne's hands were dry now, and she led the way along the
passage upstairs, sniffing as she passed her crapulous husband. She
unlocked the door of the ground-floor rooms, and they entered. It was
not an inspiring lodging as seen thus in its emptiness, with drifts of
fluff along the bare dusty boards. The unblacked grate contained some
dried-up bits of orange peel; with the last summons of the late tenant
the