Whereat the door half-opened, and Stumpy entered.
It was a dirty, half-ruinous house, in which the rats had grown tame and the spiders fat. The stairs creaked dismally as Stumpy followed his entertainer up them, while the odours rising from every nook and cranny in the place were almost suffocating.
The man led the way into a small room, foul and pestilential in its closeness. In it lay on the floor no less than nine or ten sleeping figures, mostly juveniles, huddled together, irrespective of decency, health, or comfort. Stumpy surveyed the scene composedly.
“Got lodgers, then,” he observed.
“Yes, two on ’em—on’y penny ones, though.”
Just then a sound of moaning came from one corner of the room, which arrested Stumpy’s attention.
“Who’s that?” he asked.
“Old Sal; she’s bad, and I reckon she won’t last much longer the way she’s a-going on. I shall pack her off to-day.”
Stumpy whistled softly; but it was evident, by the frequent glances he stole every now and then towards the corner where the sufferer lay, that he possessed a certain amount of interest in the woman described as “Old Sal.”
The man who appeared to be the proprietor of this one well-filled lodging-room was middle-aged, and had a hare-lip. He had an expression half careworn, and half villainous, of which he gave Stumpy the full benefit as he inquired.