The
difficulty was that the landlord was hard to move in this respect. It
ended in my finding the money to do everything that was wanted, and
taking a lease of the house for five years at the same rental as that
paid by the last occupant. I then sublet it to Ernest, of course taking
care that it was put more efficiently into repair than his landlord was
at all likely to have put it.
A week later I called and found everything so completely transformed that
I should hardly have recognised the house. All the ceilings had been
whitewashed, all the rooms papered, the broken glass hacked out and
reinstated, the defective wood-work renewed, all the sashes, cupboards
and doors had been painted. The drains had been thoroughly overhauled,
everything in fact, that could be done had been done, and the rooms now
looked as cheerful as they had been forbidding when I had last seen them.
The people who had done the repairs were supposed to have cleaned the
house down before leaving, but Ellen had given it another scrub from top
to bottom herself after they were gone, and it was as clean as a new pin.
I almost felt as though I could have lived in it myself, and as for
Ernest, he was in the seventh heaven.
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