"Wot the blazes does that Swell want in 'ere," said an old cadger, who was reclining on a bed on the floor, trimming his toe-nails with a jack-knife preparatory to going to bed, much to the edification of a young girl who sat by his side on the bed, and could not have been more than fifteen years of age.
"Mebbe he's a swell pickpocket, or fogle-hunter (handkerchief thief,)" said the innocent young creature.
"Hit stands to reason he can't be a fogle hunter, 'cos he's with the blessed Peeler," said the Cadger.
"Well, mebbe he's wiring for the perlice," said the young girl, "and wants to ketch some on us for a 'dummy.'"
"Never mind, Moll, he doesn't want us, and we'll go to sleep, cos we've got to be on the tramp, early in the morning, for the Darby."
This man was forty years of age, and the young girl, not more than fifteen years old, was his mistress, as I afterward learned.
The policeman signified to the proprietor, "Damnable Jack," that he wanted to get a bed where we might sleep together for the night.
"I hardly got a bed left but one and ye's are welcome to it, and for that matter it will hold five men and women, if I wanted to put 'em in it. Come here Phil, and give these gents a bed—they wants to taste the blessed sweets of lodgin house life. Give them their fill of it. Put them in the 'Lord Chancellor's' bed. Its the best in the house."
Let it be understood, that all the beds in the apartment were placed upon the bare floor, and that the mattresses were filled with dirty straw, which bulged out of their sides, or rags, and gave the room a close, fetid odor. For covering, there were dirty canvass quilts, made of the same stuff from which sails or potato sacks are fashioned. There were no sheets whatever, and the pillows and bolsters were stuffed as were the mattresses with rags or straw.
Near the fireplace was a bare space of smoothly laid brick, without any pretence of bedding at all, which was chalked out in a number of compartments, and each of these compartments was chalked out for a human being to sleep upon. By reposing on the bare, cold floor, the lodger saved a penny and got his bed for three-pence instead of four-pence.