‘But, my dear young lady, have you thought what is to become of them in the meantime?’
‘Why, live somewhere else! People in Smokeland were always shifting about.’
‘Yes—those poor little town tenements are generally let on short terms and are numerous enough. But here—where are the vacant cottages for your four families? Hodd with his five children, Tibbins with eight or nine, Mrs. West and her widow daughter and three children, and the Porters with a bedridden father?’
‘They are dreadfully overcrowded. Is there really no place?’
‘Probably not nearer than those trumpery new tenements at Bonchamp. That would be eight miles to be tramped to the men’s work, and the Wests would lose the washing and charing that maintains them.’
‘Then do you think it can never be done? See how nice my plans are!’
‘Oh yes! very pretty drawings, but you don’t allow much outlet.’
‘I thought you had allotments, and that they would do, and I mean to get rid of the pig-sties.’
‘A most unpopular proceeding, I warn you.’
‘There’s nothing more unsanitary than a pig-sty.’