put never a
question about it.

Now this being done, and full tidings thereof sent off to Mrs. Hockin,
to save trouble to the butcher, or other disappointment, I scarcely knew
how to be moving next, though move I must before very long. For it cost
me a great deal of money to stay in European Square like this, albeit
Herr Strouss was of all men the most generous, by his own avowal, and
his wife (by the same test) noble-hearted among women. Yet each of them
spoke of the other's pecuniary views in such a desponding tone (when the
other was out of the way), and so lamented to have any thing at all
to say about cash--by compulsion of the other--also both, when met
together, were so large and reckless, and not to be insulted by a
thought of payment, that it came to pass that my money did nothing but
run away between them.

This was not their fault at all, but all my own, for being unable to
keep my secret about the great nugget. The Major had told me not to
speak of this, according to wise experience; and I had not the smallest
intention of doing an atom of mischief in that way; but somehow or other
it came out one night when I was being pitied for my desolation. And all
the charges against me began to be doubled from that moment.

If this had been all, I should not have cared so much, being quite
content that my money should go as fast as it came in to me. But there
was another thing here which cost me as much as my board and lodgings
and all the rest of my expenses. And that was the iron pump in European
Square. For this pump stood in the very centre of a huddled district
of famine, filth, and fever. When once I had seen from the leads of
our house the quag of reeking life around, the stubs and snags of
chimney-pots, the gashes among them entitled streets, and the broken
blains called houses, I was quite ashamed of paying any thing to become
a Christian.

Betsy, who stood by me, said that it was better than it used to be,
and that all these people lived in comfort of their own ideas, fiercely
resented all interference, and were good to one another in their own
rough way. It was more than three years since there had been a single
murder among them, and even then the man who was killed confessed that
he deserved it. She told me, also, that in some mining district of
Wales, well known to her, things were a great deal worse than here,
although the people were not half so poor. And finally, looking at a
ruby ring which I ha