“It’s the term we give to slates, madam,” replied he; “we cannot put on a heavy roof with a brick-and-a-half wall. It would not support one.”
“Brick-and-a-half wall!” exclaimed I;—“surely, Mr Smithers, that’s not quite safe with a house so high.”
“Not quite safe, my dear sir, if it were a single house; but,” added he, “in a row, one house supports another.”
“Thank Heaven,” thought I, “I have but a three-years’ lease, and six months are gone already.”
But the annoyances up to this period were internal; we now had to experience the external nuisances attending a modern-built house.
“Number 1 is taken, papa, and they are getting the furniture in,” said my eldest daughter one day; “I hope we shall have nice neighbours. And William told Mary that Mr Smithers told him, when he met him in the street, that he was now going to fit up Number 3 as fast as he could.”
The report was true, as we found from the report of the carpenters’ hammers for the next three or four weeks. We could not obtain a moment’s sleep except in the early part of the night, or a minute’s repose to our ears during the day. The sound appeared as if it was in our house instead of next door; and it commenced at six o’clock in the morning, and lasted till seven in the evening. I was hammered to death; and, unfortunately, there was a constant succession of rain, which prevented me going out to avoid it. I had nothing to do but to watch my pictures, as they jumped from the wall with the thumps of the hammers. At last Number 3 was floored, wainscotted, and glazed, and we had a week’s repose.
By this time Number 1 was furnished, and the parties who had taken it came in. They were a gouty old gentleman, and his wife, who, report said, had once been his cook. My daughters’ hopes of pleasant neighbours were disappointed. Before they had been in a week, we found ourselves at issue: the old gentleman’s bed was close to the partition-wall, and in the dead of the night we could distinctly hear his groans and also his execrations and exclamations, when the fit came on him. My wife and daughters declared that it was quite horrible, and that they could not sleep for them.
Upon the eighth day there came a note:— “Mrs Whortleback’s compliments to Mr and Mrs —, and begs that the young people will not play on the piany, as Mr Whortleback is very ill with the gout.”
Now, my daughters were proficients on the piano, and practised a great deal. This note was anything but satisfactory: to play when the old gentleman was ill would be barbarous,—not to play was to deprive ourselves of our greatest pleasure.