It was a thickly crowded yet not a noisy place. In fact, it was so quiet and almost deserted that it was safe to suppose the wretched inhabitants who were not in the tumbling tenements were off to those favorite resorts, the “dives” and “bucket shops” of the neighboring streets.
Some very few miserable children, and fewer still of more miserable women, might be dimly seen, here and there, squatting on the falling front steps of the buildings, or loitering about them.
“I don’t like this place,” said Owlet, as soon as they had turned into the alley; “I don’t like this place one bit. I wouldn’t live here for a dollar. I didn’t know we had to come through this place to get to Lady’s house.”
“Oh, yes, dearie little Fine Feathers. This is the way from where you came to where Lady lives—the only way, too. You can’t go no other way not at all,” said the crone, in a conciliating tone.
“Oh, then I am so sorry. Oh, do let’s get out of here as fast as we can—Oh, phew! what makes people live in such a nasty place as this when there is ever so much big, beautiful country in the world?” said Owlet, holding her nose between thumb and finger.
“Oh, the blooming innocent! she arsks why people live in such a nasty place as this? Lord, I wonder if she thinks they choose?” inquired the ragpicker of the universe at large. Then looking in contemptuous pity on the ignorance of her little companion, she answered to the point: “’Cause they can’t ’elp it. They’s too blooming poor to be let live anywhere else.”
“Oh, I am so sorry for them! But, please hurry! I can walk faster if I try. This place does make me so sick!—sick at my stomach! I—I’m afraid I shall throw up presently,” said Owlet, beginning to gag.
“Hold on, Feathers! Oh, hold on! We’ll soon get there now! Here, smell this ’bacco,” said the ragpicker, drawing from her bosom a quid of “Old Pig” and offering it to the child.
“Oh, no!—Oh, I can’t!—It—I can’t!—Oh, please hurry!” panted the child, in great bodily distress.
“Well, now, if as ’ow yer can’t ’bide this one minnit, ’ow do yer think the poor souls as ’ave to live here all the blooming days of their lives—day in and day out, night in and night out—can a-bear it?” demanded, and not without reason, the animated mass of rags and filth by Owlet’s side.