of, and a very
dirty Wellington boot on his left arm, appeared; who (being surprised)
rubbed the nose just mentioned with the back of a shoe-brush, and said
nothing.

'Still a-bed my man?' asked Mr Pecksniff.

'Still a-bed!' replied the boy. 'I wish they wos still a-bed. They're
very noisy a-bed; all calling for their boots at once. I thought you
was the Paper, and wondered why you didn't shove yourself through the
grating as usual. What do you want?'

Considering his years, which were tender, the youth may be said to have
preferred this question sternly, and in something of a defiant manner.
But Mr Pecksniff, without taking umbrage at his bearing put a card
in his hand, and bade him take that upstairs, and show them in the
meanwhile into a room where there was a fire.

'Or if there's one in the eating parlour,' said Mr Pecksniff, 'I can
find it myself.' So he led his daughters, without waiting for any
further introduction, into a room on the ground-floor, where a
table-cloth (rather a tight and scanty fit in reference to the table it
covered) was already spread for breakfast; displaying a mighty dish of
pink boiled beef; an instance of that particular style of loaf which
is known to housekeepers as a slack-baked, crummy quartern; a liberal
provision of cups and saucers; and the usual appendages.

Inside the fender were some half-dozen pairs of shoes and boots, of
various sizes, just cleaned and turned with the soles upwards to dry;
and a pair of short black gaiters, on one of which was chalked--in
sport, it would appear, by some gentleman who had slipped down for the
purpose, pending his toilet, and gone up again--'Jinkins's Particular,'
while the other exhibited a sketch in profile, claiming to be the
portrait of Jinkins himself.

M. Todgers's Commercial Boarding-House was a house of that sort which is
likely to be dark at any time; but that morning it was especially dark.
There was an odd smell in the passage, as if the concentrated essence of
all the dinners that had been cooked in the kitchen since the house was
built, lingered at the top of the kitchen stairs to that hour, and like
the Black Friar in Don Juan, 'wouldn't be driven away.' In particular,
there was a sensation of cabbage; as if all the greens that had ever
been boiled there, were evergreens, and flourished in immortal strength.
The parlour was wainscoted, and communicated to strangers a magnetic
and instinctive consciousness of rats and mice.