Something had gone wrong in the
slatternly menage where the plated tea-services were mixed with cheap
China; and the household was being called to account. I watched her
clutching the mosquito net for support, a horror and an offence in the
eye of the guiltless day. I heard her swear in a thick, sodden voice as
I have never yet heard a man swear, and I marvelled that the house did
not thunder in on our heads. Her companion interposed, but was borne
down by a torrent of blasphemy, and the half a dozen little dogs that
infested the room removed themselves beyond reach of Corinthian Kate's
hand or foot. That she was a handsome woman only made the matter worse.
The companion collapsed shivering on one of the couches, and Kate swayed
to and fro and cursed God and man and earth and heaven with puffed lips.
If Alma Tadema could have painted her,--an arrangement in white, black
hair, flashing eyes, and bare feet,--we should have seen the true
likeness of the Eternal Priestess of Humanity. Or she would have been
better drawn when the passion was over, tottering across the room, a
champagne glass held high above her head, shouting, at ten o'clock in
the morning, for some more of the infamous brewage that was even then
poisoning the air of the whole house. She got her liquor, and the two
women sat down to share it together. That was their breakfast.

I went away very sick and miserable, and as the door closed I saw the
two drinking.

"Out and away better in 'Frisco," said the real "chippy" one. "But you
see they are awfully nice--could pass for ladies any time they like. I
tell you a man has to go round and keep his eyes open among them when
he's seeing a little sporting life."

I have seen all that I wish to see, and henceforward I will pass. There
may be better champagne and better drinkers in 'Frisco and elsewhere,
but the talk will be the same, and the mouldiness and staleness of it
all will be the same till the end of time. If this be Life, give me a
little honest death, without drinks and without foul jesting. Anyway you
look at it 'tis a poor performance, badly played, and too near to a
tragedy to be pleasant. But it seems to amuse the young man wandering
about the world, and I cannot believe that it is altogether good for
him--unless, indeed, it makes him fonder of his home.

And mine was the greater sin! I was driven by no gust of passion, but
went in cold blood to make my account of this Inferno, and to measure
the m