"So long as it's clean and decent," said the Sailor.
"I give you my word for that. Never stayed there myself, but I know them as has."
The Sailor nodded.
"O' course, it ain't the Sizzle. I don't say that all on 'em moves in high circles, that would be tellin' a lie, but if you don't mind all sorts there's wuss homes, they tell me, in this metropolus, than Bowdon House."
The young man said he would try it, anyway, if it wasn't far.
"It's at the back o' Victoria," said the cabman. "Can't miss it if you go sharp to the left at the second turnin' past the station."
Henry Harper had to confess that he didn't know the way to Victoria Station.
"It's quite easy," said the cabman. "Buss 14 that goes by here will set you down at Victoria. Then do as I say, or ask a bobby to put you right."
Armed with these instructions, Henry Harper presently set out for Bowdon House. Feeling much better for a good meal and human intercourse, he found it without difficulty. Bowdon House was a large and somber building. Its exterior rather abashed the Sailor. But a sure instinct warned him that now he could not afford to be abashed by anything. Therefore he entered and boldly paid the sum of sixpence for a vacant cubicle.
The beds might not be equal to the Sizzle, but they were clean and decent undoubtedly, and not too hard for a sailor. You could have a bath for a penny, you could keep your own private frying pan, you were allowed the use of the kitchen range to cook any food you liked to buy, and a comfortable place was provided where you could sit and eat it. The company was mixed, it was true, as the cabman had said, but these were solid advantages, and the chief of them at the moment, in the opinion of Henry Harper, was that you could go to bed when you liked and stay there forever if only you continued to pay your six-pence a night.