Chapter 20 - Page 2

leaning forward over his desk, gnawing the tip
of a paper knife after the fashion of South Kensington library
attendants, and staring at him curiously. It occurred to Lewisham that
thought reading was one of the most possible things in the world. He
blushed, rose clumsily and took the volume of the Encyclopaedia back
to its shelf.

He found the selection of lodgings a difficult business. After his
first essay he began to fancy himself a suspicious-looking character,
and that perhaps hampered him. He had chosen the district southward
of the Brompton Road. It had one disadvantage--he might blunder into a
house with a fellow-student.... Not that it mattered vitally. But the
fact is, it is rather unusual for married couples to live permanently
in furnished lodgings in London. People who are too poor to take a
house or a flat commonly find it best to take part of a house or
unfurnished apartments. There are a hundred couples living in
unfurnished rooms (with "the use of the kitchen") to one in furnished
in London. The absence of furniture predicates a dangerous want of
capital to the discreet landlady. The first landlady Lewisham
interviewed didn't like ladies, they required such a lot of
attendance; the second was of the same mind; the third told
Mr. Lewisham he was "youngish to be married;" the fourth said she only
"did" for single "gents." The fifth was a young person with an arch
manner, who liked to know all about people she took in, and subjected
Lewisham to a searching cross-examination. When she had spitted him
in a downright lie or so, she expressed an opinion that her rooms
"would scarcely do," and bowed him amiably out.

He cooled his ears and cheeks by walking up and down the street for a
space, and then tried again. This landlady was a terrible and pitiful
person, so grey and dusty she was, and her face deep lined with dust
and trouble and labour. She wore a dirty cap that was all askew. She
took Lewisham up into a threadbare room on the first floor, "There's
the use of a piano," she said, and indicated an instrument with a
front of torn green silk. Lewisham opened the keyboard and evoked a
vibration of broken strings. He took one further survey of the dismal
place, "Eighteen shillings," he said. "Thank you ... I'll let you
know." The woman smiled with the corners of her mouth down, and
without a word moved wearily towards the door. Lewisham felt a
transient wonder at her hopeless position, but he did not pursue the
inquiry.

The next landlady sufficed. She was a clean-looking German woman,
rather smartly dressed; she had a fringe of flaxen curls and a voluble
flow of words, for the most part recognisably