The Project Gutenberg EBook of Eeldrop and Appleplex, by T.S. Eliot

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Title: Eeldrop and Appleplex

Author: T.S. Eliot

Release Date: June, 2004 [EBook #5982]
Posting Date: March 28, 2009

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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EELDROP AND APPLEPLEX

T.S. Eliot

I

Eeldrop and Appleplex rented two small rooms in a disreputable part of
town. Here they sometimes came at nightfall, here they sometimes slept,
and after they had slept, they cooked oatmeal and departed in the
morning for destinations unknown to each other. They sometimes slept,
more often they talked, or looked out of the window.

They had chosen the rooms and the neighborhood with great care. There
are evil neighborhoods of noise and evil neighborhoods of silence, and
Eeldrop and Appleplex preferred the latter, as being the more evil. It
was a shady street, its windows were heavily curtained; and over it hung
the cloud of a respectability which has something to conceal. Yet it
had the advantage of more riotous neighborhoods near by, and Eeldrop and
Appleplex commanded from their windows the entrance of a police station
across the way. This alone possessed an irresistible appeal in their
eyes. From time to time the silence of the street was broken; whenever a
malefactor was apprehended, a wave of excitement curled into the street
and broke upon the doors of the police station. Then the inhabitants of
the street would linger in dressing-gowns, upon their doorsteps: then
alien visitors would linger in the street, in caps; long after the
centre of misery had been engulphed in his cell. Then Eeldrop and
Appleplex would break off their discourse, and rush out to mingle with
the mob. Each pursued his own line of enquiry. Appleplex, who had the
gift of an extraordinary address with the lower classes of both sexes,
questioned the onlookers, and usually extracted full and inconsistent
histories: Eeldrop preserved a more passive demeanor, listened to the
conversation of the people among themselves, registered in his mind
their oaths, their redundance of phrase, th