e my naturally keen olfactory organs. I had endured it for almost
a month, and would suffer its unmanning horrors no more. Indeed, I
would suffer nothing like it again. Why should I? My earnings were
increasing. I would escape from the whole district, its miseries, its
smells, its infamies, and its thousand dehumanising degradations. I
would emigrate.

Yes, that tramp in Epping Forest was quite epoch-making. It came after
more than two years of struggle in London. I had made fully five
pounds in the past month. I had actually laid aside a couple of
sovereigns, and doubtless that salient fact emboldened me. Also, I had
had a number of quite meaty meals of late. But the wild stamping to
and fro under trees, the sight of the bonny, white-sterned rabbits at
play, the copious tea in a pleached arbour, the clean forest air--these
I am sure had been as a fiery stimulant to my drooping manhood.
I went to bed full of the most reckless resolves, and astonishingly
light-hearted.

In the morning, having feasted (as well as the prevailing smell
permitted) upon an apple, brown bread, and tea--butter was 'off' that
day, I remember--I set forth upon a prospecting tour, working westward
from my north-easterly abode, through Holloway, Finsbury, the Camden
Road, and such places, into the neighbourhood of Regent's Park. The
park, which was strange to me, pleased me greatly; as did also certain
minor streets in its neighbourhood, a mews which I found quaint and
quite rural in its suggestions, and sundry white houses with green
shutters which, for some reason, I remember I called 'discreet.' There
was nothing here that looked poor enough for me, but none the less I
inquired at one or two of the smaller houses whose windows held cards
indicating that rooms were to let in them.

At length, in a quiet and decent thoroughfare called Howard Street, I
happened upon Mrs. Pelly's house--No. 37. The girl who answered my
knock had a pleasant little face, and a soft, kindly tone in speaking.
I supposed she was not more than one-and-twenty, perhaps less. Her
mother was out, she said, but she would show me the only vacant room
they had. Indeed--with a little smile--she really did more for the
lodgers than her mother did.

The room was at the back of the house on the first floor, and there
was but one other floor above it. It had a French window, with a tiny
iron balcony, three feet by eighteen inches. The furnishings were
greatly superior to any I h