CHAPTER XXXVI THE END OF THE STORY
"Our years pass like a tale that is told badly."
—Moleskin Joe.
The darkness had long since fallen over the tumbledown rookeries of the Glasgow alley wherein this story is to end, but the ragged children still played in the gutters and the old withered women still gossiped on the pavements. Two drunken men fought outside a public-house and another lay asleep on the dirty kerbstone. When Moleskin and I came to the close which was well known to my mate we had to step over the drunken man in making an entrance.
We passed through a long arched passage and made our way up a flight of rickety wooden stairs, which were cracked at every step, while each crack was filled with the undisturbed dirt of months.
"In there," said Joe, pointing to a splintered door when we gained the top landing. "I'm goin' to stop outside and wait till you come back again."
I rapped on the door, but there was no response. I pushed against the handle and it opened inwards. An open door is a sure sign of poverty. It is a waste of time to lock a door on an empty house. Here where the wealth of men was not kept, the purity of women could not be stolen. Probably Death had effected his entrance before me, but he is one whom no door can hold. I looked into the room.
How bare it looked! A guttering candle threw a dim light over the place and showed up the nakedness of the apartment. The paper on the walls was greasy to the height of a man's head and there was no picture or ornament in the place to bring out one reviving thought. The floor was dirty, worn, and uncarpeted; a pile of dead ashes was in the fireplace and a frying-pan without a handle lay in one corner of the room. No chair was to be seen. A pile of rags lay on the floor and these looked as if they had been used for a bed. The window was open, probably to let the air into the room, but instead of the pure fresh air, the smoke of a neighbouring chimney stole into the chamber.