You haven't any stomach for the warm,
tasteless mess which has been "kep' 'ot" for you in a cold stove. You
feel just physically tired enough to go to your room, lie down on the
bed, and snatch twenty minutes' rest from that terrible unemployed
restlessness which, you know, is sure to drag you to your feet to pace
the room or tramp the pavement even before your bodily weariness has
nearly left you. So you start up the narrow, stuffy little flight of
steps call the "stairs." Three small doors open from the landing--a
square place of about four feet by four. The first door is yours; it is
open, and--

Decided odour of bedroom dust and fluff, damped and kneaded with
cold soap-suds. Rear view of a girl covered with a damp, draggled,
dirt-coloured skirt, which gapes at the waistband from the "body,"
disclosing a good glimpse of soiled stays (ribs burst), and yawns behind
over a decidedly dirty white petticoat, the slit of which last, as she
reaches forward and backs out convulsively, half opens and then comes
together in an unsatisfactory, startling, tantalizing way, and allows a
hint of a red flannel under-something. The frayed ends of the skirt
lie across a hopelessly-burst pair of elastic-sides which rest on their
inner edges--toes out--and jerk about in a seemingly undecided manner.
She is damping and working up the natural layer on the floor with a
piece of old flannel petticoat dipped occasionally in a bucket which
stands by her side, containing about a quart of muddy water. She looks
round and exclaims, "Oh, did you want to come in, Mr Careless?" Then
she says she'll be done in a minute; furthermore she remarks that if you
want to come in you won't be in her road. You don't--you go down to the
dining-room--parlour--sitting-room---nursery--and stretch yourself
on the sofa in the face of the painfully-evident disapproval of the
landlady.

You have been here, say, three months, and are only about two weeks
behind. The landlady still says, "Good morning, Mr Careless," or "Good
evening, Mr Careless," but there is an unpleasant accent on the "Mr,"
and a still more unpleasantly pronounced stress on the "morning"
or "evening." While your money lasted you paid up well and
regularly--sometimes in advance--and dined out most of the time; but
that doesn't count now.

Ten minutes pass, and then the landlady's disapproval becomes
manifest and aggressive. One of the little girls, a sharp-faced little
larrikiness, who always wear