On closing the door, and rejoining Mr. and Mrs. Sandboys, who still stood on the top of the kitchen stairs, Mrs. Fokesell led the way to the basement, and, opening the kitchen door, stepped across the area. Stopping in front of one of the two doors that led to what the landlady was pleased to dignify by the name of a humble apartment on the basement floor, she unfastened the padlock, and revealed the interior of a cellar, from the arched roof of which was slung a sailor’s hammock, while on the floor was spread a small square of dingy carpet. In one corner, on top of a beer-barrel, stood an apparatus that did duty for a toilet-table. Against the whitewashed wall hung a small sixpenny shaving-glass; while, immediately beneath it, there was placed a dilapidated chair. Mrs. Sandboys, who until that moment had never set eyes on that peculiar kind of naval contrivance for obtaining a night’s rest under difficulties, could not refrain from expressing her firm conviction that it was utterly impossible for any woman of her size to deposit herself safely in the interior of that thing, which people were pleased to call a bed. Mrs. Fokesell, however, begged to assure her that she had passed many—many very pleasant nights in that very hammock, and with the aid of the trestle which she had placed on the floor, and an assisting hand from her husband, she was sure the lady would be able to manage very well. Mr. Sandboys himself was anything but pleased with the arrangements of the proposed dormitory, and, secretly in his own mind, he was inquiring of himself how, when he had lent the said assisting hand to his better half, and safely lodged her within the depths of the suspended hammock, he himself was ever to join her there, for who, he wanted to know, was there to perform the same kind office for him? However, even if they had to take the bed down, and spread it on the carpet, it would, thought Mr. Sandboys, be far preferable to none at all, so he told Mrs. Fokesell that he and his good lady would avail themselves of the accommodation, at least for that one night. “It’s all I have, ma’am,” said the landlady; “I have just let the last tent on the tiles to a foreign nobleman, and seven shillings a night is what I has from him. I assure you it’s a fact, ma’am. There is not a foot in a respectable house that is not worth its length in sovereigns, ma’am. Why, if you’ll believe me, ma’am, there’s my next-door neighbour, she’s put a feather bed into her warm bath, and let it off to a young East Injun at a guinea a week, for a month certain. Mr. Sandboys, exhausted with his journey, made no more ado, but closed the bargain with Mrs. Fokesell; and, having partaken of some fried chops, by way of supper, in the kitchen, he and his beloved Aggy withdrew to the privacy of the cellar which was to constitute their bed-chamber for the night.