Mrs. Laws—the landlady in question—a stout and elderly woman with a chronic aversion to stairs—removed her eyes from the window of the front room, and crossed the room heavily, and went to open the door. When it was opened the young man nodded pleasantly, and indicated the card in the window.
"You have rooms to let?" he said. "I was walking through here yesterday, and saw the card, and thought the place might suit me."
"W'ich it's a sweet room, sir—or p'raps I should say two rooms—one hopenin' out of the other—and cheap at any price. On the second floor, sir—an' if you cared to walk in——"
"Thank you," said the young man. "I know the sort of rooms; I'll take them, if the price is all right. I can't afford very much—but I dare say we can arrange that."
It was arranged then and there—the landlady a little surprised at the suddenness with which the young man accepted an offer that was half a crown in advance of what the landlady would really have taken. The luggage was brought in, with the assistance of the cabman, who turned on each occasion as he got to the door with a box or a bag on his shoulder to shout sternly at the horse—"Whoa!"—as though that patient steed, apparently half asleep, had made up its mind to seize the opportunity to run away. Then the cabman was paid, and the cab was gone; and the young man, after declining to have any little thing cooked for him, was left in the shabby room to himself. He shut the door, and looked about him.
He was a tall young man, with broad shoulders, and he was rather shabbily dressed. He presently walked through into the back room, and looked out over those apologies for gardens common to Arcadia Street and other places; shrugged his shoulders, and sighed a little, and shook his head.
"Just the same as ever—nothing changed, and yet everything changed," he muttered. "All the spirit of Arcadia Street—all that peopled it and made it beautiful—is gone; there's no one left to look for Fairyland within its limits. Well—it's as good a place for a poor man to live in as any other; and after all there are certain memories that float about its grimy chimneys."
He was roused by a knock at the door of the other room. Believing it to be the anxious Mrs. Laws with another appeal to the new lodger to partake of food, he walked into that further room, and called out somewhat impatiently—
"Come in!"