Between Notting Hill and Wormwood Scrubbs lies a vast desert of human dwellings. Fringing Notting Hill they are inhabited by lower middle-class folk, but, by scarcely perceptible degrees, there is a declension of so-called respectability, till at last the frankly working-class district of Latimer Road is reached. Baynham Street was one of the ill-conditioned, down-at-heel little roads which tenaciously fought an uphill fight with encroaching working-class thoroughfares. Its inhabitants referred with pride to the fact that Baynham Street overlooked a railway, which view could be obtained by craning the neck out of window at risk of dislocation. A brawny man was standing before the open door of No. 11 as Mavis walked up the steps.
"Is Bill coming?" asked the man, as he furtively lifted his hat.
Mavis looked surprised.
"To chuck out this 'ere lodger for Mrs. Scatchard wo' won't pay up," he explained.
"I know nothing about it," said Mavis.
"Ain't you Mrs Dancer, Bill's new second wife?"
Mavis explained that she had come to see Miss Meakin, at which the man walked into the passage and knocked at the first door on the left, as he called out:
"Lady to see you!"
"Who?" asked Miss Meakin, as she displayed a fraction of a scantily attired person through the barely opened door.
"Have you forgotten me?" asked Mavis, as she entered the passage.