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 its 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 got 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 night-cap, 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.
Newvman pointed to the empty glass, as though it were a sufficient refutation of the charge, and briefly said that he was going down stairs to supper.
"To the Kenwigses?" asked Crowl.
Newman nodded assent.
"Think of that now!" said Crowl. "If I didn't—thinking that you were certain not to go, because you said you wouldn't—tell Kenwigs I couldn't come, and make up my mind to spend the evening with you."
"I was obliged to go," said Newman. "They would have me."
"Well; but what's to become of me?" urged the selfish man, who
