A House to Let

most likely never have happened, if a person named Trottle had

y and entirely his own, was one which had already excited the interest of his respected mistress in a very extraor

own account, towards clearing up the mystery of the empty House. Carefully dismissing from his mind all nonsensical notions of former tenants and their histories, and keeping the one point in vi

use. When he knocked at the door, he knew nothing of the matter which he was about to investigate, except that the landlord was

n-window. There appeared at it immediately the figure of a woman, who looked up inquisitively at the stranger on the steps, left the window in a hurry, and came back t

rsuading voice and a gruff resisting voice — confusedly reached his ears. After a while, the voices left off speaking — a chain was undone, a bolt drawn

h a cracked voice, that it was quite startling to hear her. “Chilly weather, a

king a sort of gruff echo of himself, and chuckl

d in his face. Therefore, he took circumstances as he found them,

hirteenth, ain’t you, sir? Mr. Forley’s particular friend, and dressed all in black — quite right, sir! Please to step into the dining-room — it’s always kep scoured and clean against Mr. Forley comes here — and I’ll fetch a candle in half a minute. It gets so dark in the evenings, now, yo

he echo, and chuckles again as if h

go slowly down the kitchen-stairs. The front-door had been carefully chained up and bolted behind him on his entrance; and t

lness from seeing the people put in charge as usual, had appointed a friend to represent him; and had written to say so. Third, that the friend had a choice of two Mondays, at a particular time in the evening, for doing his errand; and that Trottle had accidentally hit on this time, and on the first of the Mondays, for beginning his own investigations. Fourth, t

in, with a flash of candle-light going before them. He waited for the woman’s coming in with some little anxiety; for the t

nd chin — devilishly brisk, smiling, and restless, with a dirty false front and a dirty black cap, and short fidgetty arms, and long hooked finger-nails — an unnaturally lusty old woman, who walked with a spring in her wicked old feet, and spoke

propped against the bare wall of the passage. “He’s got his inside dreadful bad again, has my son Benjamin. And he won’t go to bed, and he will follow me about the house, up-stairs and downstairs, and in

ing Benjamin, winking at the candl

ttered about the wall on either side of him, as if they were groping for a imaginary bottle. In plain English, the complaint of “My son Benjamin” was drunkenness, of the stupid, pig-headed, sottish kind. Drawing this conclusion easily enough, after a moment’s observation of the man, Trottle found himself, nevertheless, keeping his eyes fixed much longer than was necessary on the ugly drunken face rolling about in the monstrous big coat collar, and looking at it with a curiosit

ozen — for Trottle to be ransacking his memory for small matters that had got into wrong corners of it. He put by in his mind that very curious circumstanc

sink in the back kitchen don’t smell to matter much to-day, and it’s uncommon chilly up here when a person’s flesh don’t hardly cover a person’s bones. But you don’t look cold, sir, do you? And then, why, Lord bless

of her skinny hands, and tapping cheerfully in the palm with the knuckles of the other. Agravating Benjamin, seeing what she was about, roused up a little, c

he wall and nodding his head viciously at his chee

giving and taking of money, and that he was expected to be the giver. It was at this stage of the proceedings that he f

save his pocket, when the silence was suddenly int

raping sound — so faint that it could hardly have

. “Only name it; only say if you’d like to see him before we do our little bit of business — and I’ll show good Forley’s friend up-stairs, just as if he was good Mr. Forley himself. MY legs are all right,

ce of putting off that uncomfortable give-and-take-business, and, better still, a chance perhaps of finding out one of the secrets of the

ven helped by the bannisters, was more, with his particular complaint, than he seemed to feel himself inclined to venture on. He sat down obstinately on the lowest step, with h

ffectionate mother, stopping to snu

n, agravating to the last, “till

he front-parlour, or up the staircase, so far. The House was dirty and dreary and close-smelling — but there was nothing about it to excite the least curiosity, except th

her was not a bit out of breath, and looked all ready to go to the top of the monument if necessary. The faint scraping sound had got

loft in the ceiling above the landing; but the cobwebs all over it vouched sufficiently for its not having been opened for some little time. The scraping noise, plainer t

at any rate, was struck dumb with amazement, at th

the door, there appeared, of all the creatures in the world to see alone at such a place and at such a time, a mere mite of a child — a little, lonely, wizen, strangely-clad boy, who could not at the most, have been more than five years old. He had a greasy old blue shawl crossed over his breast, and rolled up, to keep the ends from the ground, into a great big lump on his back. A strip of something which looked like the remains of a woman’s flannel petticoat, sho

e game which he was playing at, all by himself; and which, moreover, explained in the most unexpected manner the fain

forwards on the boards, as gravely and steadily as if he had been at scouring-work for years, and had got a large family to keep by it. The coming-in of Trottle and the old woman did not startle or disturb him in the least. He just looked up for a minute at the candle, with a pair of very bright, sharp eyes, and then went on with his work again, as if nothing had happened. On one side of him was a battered pint saucepan without a handle, which was his make-believe pail; and on

tle downy eyebrows into a frown. “Drat th

till Trottle thought she

and calling for my beer afterwards. That’s his regular game, morning, noon, and night — he’s never tired of it. Only look how snug we’ve been and dressed him. That’s my shawl a keepin his precious little body warm, and Benjamin’s nightca

nder the circumstances as Benjamin’s mother herself. But seeing the child reduced (as he could not help suspecting) for want of proper toys and proper child’s company, to take up with the mocking of an old woman at her s

le chap in all England. You don’t seem a bit afr

see with the big winder.” He stops a bit, and gets up on his legs, and looks h

got a run in the open air to cheer him up a bit. O, yes, he had a run now and then, out of doors (to say nothing of his runs about the house), the lively little c

and as he felt that such an answer would naturally prove the death-blow to all further discoveries on his part, he gulped down his feelings before they go

epan; and was now working his way, as well as his clothes would let him, with his make-believe pail

is shoulder, “what are you two stopping here f

Seeing Trottle take a step or two to follow him, Benjamin’s mot

she, “haven’t you se

“I should like to

and. To think of good Mr. Forley’s friend taking ten times more trouble about the imp than good Mr. Forley himself! Such a joke as that, Benj

had just heard, that Mr. Forley’s interest in the child was not of the fondest possible kind, Trottle w

or bedding — an old bolster, with nearly all the feathers out of it, doubled in three for a pillow; a mere shred of patchwork counter-pane, and a blanket; and under that, and peeping out a little on either side beyond the loose clothes, two faded chair cushions of horsehair, laid along together for a so

n,” says Trottle. “Jump

forlorn child, “and I don’t mean to jump.

t of the bed, he says, “I say, look here,” and ducks under the clothes, head first, worming his way up and up softly, under the blanket and counterpane, till Trottle saw the top of the large nightcap slowly peep out on the bolster. This over-sized head-gear of the child’s had so shoved itself down in the course of his journey to the pillow, under the clothes, that when he got his face fairly out on the bolste

mother, giving Trottle a cheerful dig with her elbo

e voice under the bedclothes, chiming in with

and windings, right on to the end, he would have probably snatched the boy up then and there, and carried him off from his garret prison, bed-clothes

Trottle laid his hand on them. “They ar

ing to feel his way a little farther into the mystery of

‘Hundred and twenty pound a-year!’—‘Hundred and twenty? why, there ain’t a house in the street as lets for more than eighty!’— Likely enough, ma’am; other landlords may lower their rents if they please; but this here landlord sticks to his rights, and means to have as much for his house as his father had befo

ely posted up in his memory what he had just heard. “Two points made out,” he thought to himself:

parlour. “What we’ve done, one way and another for Mr. Forley, it isn’t in words to tell! That nice little bit of business of ours ought to be a bigger bit of business, considering the tro

so far from thinking about that little matter as you fancy? You would be disappointed, now, if I told you that I had come to-day without the money?”—(her lank old jaw fell, and her villainous old eyes glared, in a perfect state of panic, at t

, and jammed him up confidentially so close into the corner

says she, holding up her four skinny fingers and her lo

of one?” says he, pushing past her, and

ought never to have approached her lips, and rained down such an awful shower of blessings on Trottle’s head, that his hair almost stood on end to hear her. He went on down-stairs as fast as his feet would car

f another man, whom he had seen at a past time in very different circumstances. He determined, before leaving the House, to have one more look at

says Trottle to the old woman, looking

them for a moment, which struck home to Trottle’s memory as quick and as clear as a flash of light. The old maudlin sleepy expression came back again in another instant,

e old woman’s palaver about Benjamin’s indisgestion. “I’ve got

rget next Monday at dusk, Trottle contrived to struggle through the sickening business of leave-taking; to get the