“I’ve bin ’ere,” she stated,—“these two years, and my darter’s baby was born in the kitching.”
“Indeed!” I murmured, politely endeavouring to edge my way to the door. But she stuck her stout arms akimbo and proceeded:
“They wants a premium for this place, and I sez to them, sez I, ‘You’ll never get it.’ I sez that. No more they won’t. There’s a view of the Park from the back.”
This last observation was thrown in, as it were, casually.
“I am aware of that,” I said—“But I am not particular about the Park. Good-morning!”
“Well, that’s what I sez,” she went on morosely—“I sez ‘there’s those that doesn’t care for the Park and there’s those that does. But a premium you’ll not get.’ Why, when my darter’s baby was born in that kitching, we was afraid he would be eat up by the rats, there’s such a many of them. And beetles. There’s a many of them too. Lord bless yer, half them premiums goes into the hagents’ pockets! The old lady as was here last drunk herself to death—and there won’t be a penny spent on repairs!”
By this time I had found out how to open the street-door for myself,—and I made my exit thankfully, the Venetian-canal odour being somewhat overpowering. En passant I may mention that for this house, dirty, undecorated, and in the worst possible repair, a rent was asked of £250 per annum, and Four Thousand Pounds premium!
My next experience in the way of “care-takers” was of an excitable lady who was too far gone in her cups to be aware of her duties. She was placed in charge of a rather handsome house,—handsome as far as its exterior went. Of the interior I am unable to speak, as the convival “care-taker” had not the vaguest idea of admitting me. She opened the door about the width of half a yard, and peered at me with her rolling, restless eyes, her blotched and inflamed face producing quite a heating effect on the immediate atmosphere.
“It’s a good ’ouse,”—she observed, lurching to and fro like a landsman at sea in a heavy storm—“A good ’ouse! Yes, I say it—a good ’ouse,—and we wants to let it—hic—hic!—to good tenants! Yaah—yaah!”
This wild ejaculation was addressed to a poor thin cat who came feebly trying to make its way in at the door.