there are nine rooms in each house. We look in vain
for bright windows and for clean and decent curtains.

Every room seems occupied, for there is no card in any window announcing
"furnished apartments." The street is too well known to require
advertisement, consequently the "furnished apartments" are seldom
without tenants.

The street is a cave of Adullam to which submerged married couples
resort when their own homes, happy or otherwise, are broken up.

We notice that it is many days since the doors and window-frames of the
different houses made acquaintance with the painter. We notice that
all doors stand open, for it is nobody's business to answer a knock,
friendly or otherwise. We look in the various doorways and see in each
case the same sort of staircase and the same unclean desolation.

Who would believe that Adullam Street is a veritable Tom Tiddler's
Ground? Would any one believe that a colony of the submerged could prove
a source of wealth?

Let us count the houses on both sides of the street. Forty-five houses!
Leave out the two "general" shops, the greengrocer's and the "off
licence"; leave out also the one where the agent and collector lives,
that leaves us forty-one houses of nine rooms let out as furnished
apartments.

If let to married couples that means a population of seven hundred
and thirty-eight, if all the rooms are occupied, and supposing that no
couple occupies more than one room. As for the children--but we dare not
think of them--we realise the advantage of the open street of which we
freely grant them the freehold. But we make the acquaintance of a tenant
and ask some questions. We find that she has two children, that they
have but one furnished room, for which they pay seven shillings and
sixpence weekly in advance! Always in advance!

She further tells us that their room is one of the best and largest; it
faces the street, and is on the first floor. She says that some rooms
are let at six shillings, others at six shillings and sixpence, and some
at seven shillings. We ask her why she lives in Adullam Street, and she
tells us that her own furniture was obtained on the "hire system," and
when it was seized they came to Adullam Street, and they do not know how
they are to get out of it.

That sets us thinking and calculating; three hundred and sixty-nine
rooms, rent always payable in advance--from the submerged,
too!--average six shillings and sixpence per week per room, why, that
is