As he advances the neighborhood grows more squalid, until he is in one of the poorest sections of the city, not far from the railroad.
At length he pauses in front of a dilapidated frame, evidently a tenement—pauses with a dramatic gesture, and mutters:
“Behold! the Hotel des Vagabonde, where thieves never break through and steal; where no one rolls and groans from an overloaded stomach; the home of the highway prince, the boot-black cavalier, and the jolly old bachelor. Waive all ceremony and enter, my dear boy. I’ll not arouse the janitor, poor fellow. And as I’m a wise man I’ll extinguish this cigar for a double reason—it’ll give me a morning smoke, and prevent a sensation in the princely hotel, for a Havana is unknown in this region of powerful clay pipes, and the odor might offend the fastidous nose of some lodger, when there would be the deuce to pay.”
No sooner said than done.
At the door no keeper challenges his entrance; day and night it is free to all. Wycherley climbs various flights of rickety stairs. It is very dark, but he seems to know from intuition just where every broken board lies, and the higher he gets, the lighter his spirits grow. He hums an operatic air and changes it to “After the Ball.” Really this man makes light of care—troubles sit upon him like bubbles.
Now he stops in front of a door, fumbles in his pocket, finds a key, and enters.
“Where the deuce is that electric button? very queer I fail to find it. Well, making a virtue of necessity I’ll have to fall back on Old Reliable.”
A match crackles, the flame shoots up. Then he applied it to the wick of a candle stuck in the neck of an old beer bottle.
The scene is a remarkable one! Rarely did candlelight illumine a more destitute room. From the wall large pieces of plaster are gone, ditto the ceiling. A general survey of the place would result about as follows: imprimus: the lone bachelor himself; item: one trundle bed, scantily clad and sadly in need of smoothing; item: a carpet bag with a tendency to falling over on one side because of constitutional leanness; items: a piece of looking-glass fastened to the wall, a single wooden chair, a tin basin, a bare table on which the candle holds full sway.
That is the sum total.