We return to Phil.
“Foller me, boy!” said Mr. Tucker, as he entered the house, and proceeded to ascend the front steps.
Philip had formed his plans, and without a word of remonstrance, he obeyed. The whole interior was dingy and dirty. Mrs. Tucker was not a neat woman, and everything looked neglected and slipshod.
In the common room, to the right, the door of which was partly open, Philip saw some old men and women sitting motionless, in a sort of weary patience. They were “paupers,” and dependent for comfort on the worthy couple, who regarded them merely as human machines, good to them for sixty cents a week each.
Mr. Tucker did not stop at the first landing, but turned and began to ascend a narrower and steeper staircase leading to the next story.
This was, if anything, dirtier and more squalid than the first and second. There were several small rooms on the third floor, into one of which Mr. Tucker pushed his way. “Come in,” he said. “Now you’re at home. This is goin’ to be your room.”
Philip looked around him in disgust, which he did not even take the trouble to conceal.
There was a cot-bed in the corner, with an unsavory heap of bed-clothing upon it, and a couple of chairs, both with wooden seats, and one with the back gone.
That was about all the furniture. There was one window looking out upon the front.
“So this is to be my room, is it?” asked our hero.