The stairs up which I make my difficult way are strung with washing as
far as the first bend. The dampness of the atmosphere has converted the
dust and grime on banisters, wall, and stairs into a muddy dew. The
little doll's-house of a place reeks with the suffocating odour of gas,
fried fish, onions, and steam. In one of the two rooms on the first
floor, the door of which stands open, I see--and myself am seen, not to
say scowled at, by a couple of pipe-smoking navvies, three or four
ragged children, and a little rabbit of a flat-chested woman whose
complexion and the colour of her garments bear a striking resemblance to
moleskin, and whose thin hair is twisted up in front and held
comfortably in its place by a single steel curling-pin which seems to
occupy the whole breadth of her forehead.
My rap on the panel of the other door is soon answered by a shrill,
cracked voice like the sputtering of a cheap phonograph, and opening the
flimsy door I find myself in a tiny topsy-turvy chamber, with all its
furniture dragged out of place, a pail of water in the centre of the
floor, a piece of scrubbing-soap on the table, and an unwrung
house-flannel soaking on the seat of a wooden chair. There is a nice,
old-fashioned, round-fronted chest-of-drawers with brass handles in the
room, but the most striking detail of its equipment is a stumpy and
amazingly abrupt bedstead against the wall, which is just big enough for
a big doll.
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