Each is as mad as a hatter,
Who is so eager to sprawl,
Scrimmage, scout, smash, smite, clatter,
After the Ball!
THE HEIGHT OF COMFORT.
- Q. I want to consult you about Flats. You must know all about them, as you have tried this kind of "high life" for a year. And I am quite charmed with the idea of getting one. Now, don't you find that they have many advantages over the old-fashioned separate house system?
- A. Oh, a great many!
- Q. I suppose that even in such paradises a few drawbacks do exist?
- A. A few. For instance, did you notice, during your painful progress upstairs, a doctor coming out of the rooms just below us? No? Then you were fortunate. There's a typhoid case there, we hear.
- Q. Dear me! Now I think of it, I did meet a woman dressed as a hospital nurse. But she was coming down from somewhere above you.
- A. Yes. The people over our heads. It's a scarlet fever patient they have, I believe. We can hear the nurse moving about in the middle of the night. And chemists' boys with medicines call at our door, by mistake, at all hours.
- Q. Still, they can't get in. Your flat is your castle, surely?
- A. Quite so. It's a pity it isn't a roomier castle. Our bedrooms are like cupboards, and look out on a dark court. We have to keep the gas burning there all day.
- Q. Oh, indeed! But then, being on one floor, living must be much cheaper, because you can do with only one servant?
- A. That is true; but we find that the difficulty is to get servants to do with us. They hate being mastheaded like this; they miss the area, and the talks with the tradesmen, and so on.
- Q. But they must go downstairs to take dust and cinders away?
- A. No, those go down the shoot. At least, a good many of the cinders do, though some seem to stop on the way. Our downstair neighbours complain horribly, and threaten to summon us.
- Q. Do they? On the whole, however, you find your fellow-residents obliging?
- A. Oh, very! The landing window leads to some disputes. We like it open. The people upstairs prefer it shut. The case comes on at the police court next week.
- Q. You surprise me! Then, as regards other expenses, you save, don't you, by paying no rates?
- A. We do. That is why our landlord charges us for these eight rooms on one floor just double what we should have to pay for a large house all to ourselves.
- Q. Thanks for giving me so much information. Of course, I knew there must be some disadvantages. And you won't be surprised to hear that we have taken a flat after all, as they are so fashionable?
- A. On the contrary, I should be quite surprised if you didn't.