PASSAGE IN THE LIFE OF MR. WATKINS TOTTLE. 123 



The knock was answered by a sallow-faced, red-haired, sulky 

 boy, who, after surveying Mr. Gabriel Parsons through the glass 

 applied a large key to an immense wooden excrescence, which was 

 in reality a lock, but which, taken in conjunction with the iron nails 

 with which the panels were studded, gave the door the appearance 

 of being subject to* warts. 



" I want to see Mr. Watkins Tottle," said Parsons. 



(s It's the gentleman that came in this morning, Jem," screamed a 

 voice from the top of the kitchen-stairs, which belonged to a dirty 

 woman who had just brought her chin to a level with the passage- 

 floor. " The gentleman's in the coffee-room." 



" Up stairs, Sir," said the boy, just opening the door wide enough 

 to let Parsons in without squeezing him, and double-locking it the 

 moment he had made his way through the aperture " First floor 

 door on the right." 



Mr. Gabriel Parsons thus instructed, ascended the uncarpeted and 

 ill-lighted staircase, and after giving several subdued taps at the 

 before-mentioned " door on the right," which were rendered in- 

 audible by the hum of voices within the room, and the hissing noise 

 attendant on some frying operations which were carrying on below 

 stairs, turned the handle, and entered the apartment. Being in- 

 formed that the unfortunate object of his visit had just gone up stairs 

 to write a letter, he had leisure to sit down and observe the scene 

 before him. 



The room which was a small, confined den was partitioned off 

 into boxes, like the common room of some inferior eating-house. 

 The dirty floor had evidently been as long a stranger to the scrub- 

 bing-brush as to carpet or floor-cloth; and the ceiling was com- 

 pletely blackened by the flare of the oil-lamp by which the room 

 was lighted at night. The grey ashes on the edges of the tables, 

 and the cigar ends which were plentifully scattered about the dusty 

 grate, fully accounted for the intolerable smell of tobacco which per- 

 vaded the place ; and the empty glasses, and half- saturated slices of 

 lemon on the tables, together with the porter pots beneath them, bore 

 testimony to the frequent libations in which the individuals who 

 honoured Mr. Solomon Jacobs by a temporary residence in his house 

 indulged. Over the mantel-shelf was a paltry looking-glass, ex- 

 tending about half the width of the chimney-piece ; but, by way of 

 a counterpoise, the ashes were confined, by a rusty fender, about 

 twice as long as the hearth. 



From this cheerful room itself, the attention of Mr. Gabriel Par- 

 sons was naturally directed to its inmates. In one of the boxes two 

 men were playing at cribbage with a very dirty pack of cards, some 

 with blue, some with green, and some with red backs selections from 

 decayed packs. The cribbage-board had been long ago formed on the 

 table by some ingenious visitor, with the assistance of a pocket-knife 

 and a two-pronged fork, with which the necessary number of holes 

 had been made in the table at proper distances for the reception of the 

 wooden pegs. In another box a stout, hearty-looking man, of about 

 forty, was eating some dinner, which his wife an equally comfortable- 

 looking personage had brought him in a basket ; and in a third, a 



