Chapter 14 - Page 2

have been
beyond the power of a calculating boy to discover.

The common stairs of this mansion were bare and carpetless; but a
curious visitor who had to climb his way to the top, might have
observed that there were not wanting indications of the progressive
poverty of the inmates, although their rooms were shut. Thus, the
first-floor lodgers, being flush of furniture, kept an old mahogany
table--real mahogany--on the landing-place outside, which was only
taken in, when occasion required. On the second story, the spare
furniture dwindled down to a couple of old deal chairs, of which
one, belonging to the back-room, was shorn of a leg, and bottomless.
The story above, boasted no greater excess than a worm-eaten wash-
tub; and the garret landing-place displayed no costlier articles
than two crippled pitchers, and some broken blacking-bottles.

It was on this garret landing-place that a hard-featured square-
faced man, elderly and shabby, stopped to unlock the door of the
front attic, into which, having surmounted the task of turning the
rusty key in its still more rusty wards, he walked with the air of
legal owner.

This person wore a wig of short, coarse, red hair, which he took off
with his hat, and hung upon a nail. Having adopted in its place a
dirty cotton nightcap, and groped about in the dark till he found a
remnant of candle, he knocked at the partition which divided the two
garrets, and inquired, in a loud voice, whether Mr Noggs had a
light.

The sounds that came back were stifled by the lath and plaster, and
it seemed moreover as though the speaker had uttered them from the
interior of a mug or other drinking vessel; but they were in the
voice of Newman, and conveyed a reply in the affirmative.

'A nasty night, Mr Noggs!' said the man in the nightcap, stepping in
to light his candle.

'Does it rain?' asked Newman.

'Does it?' replied the other pettishly. 'I am wet through.'

'It doesn't take much to wet you and me through, Mr Crowl,' said
Newman, laying his hand upon the lappel of his threadbare coat.

'Well; and that makes it the more vexatious,' observed Mr Crowl, in
the same pettish tone.

Uttering a low querulous growl, the speaker, whose harsh countenance
was the very epitome of selfishness, raked the scanty fire nearly
out of the grate, and, emptying the glass which Noggs had pushed
towards him, inquired where he kept his coals.

Newman Noggs pointed to the bottom of a cupboard, and Mr Crowl,
seizing the shovel, threw on half the stock: which Noggs very
deliberately took off again, without saying a word.

'You have not turned saving, at this time of day, I hope?' said
Crowl.

Newman pointed to the empty glass,