"Now then, you children," Mrs Widger continued in a strident voice, buttering two hunks of bread with astonishing rapidity. "Take off thic hat, Mabel. _Sit_ down, Jimmy." "Coo'h! Jam!" said Jimmy. "Jam zide plaate, like the gen'leman, please, Mam Widger." "When you've eat that." I never saw children munch so fast. Tony took off his boots and stockings, and wrung out the ends of his trousers upon the hearth-rug. He pattered to the oven; opened the door; sniffed. "Her's got summat for my tay, I can see. What is it, Missis? Fetch it out----quick, sharp! Mackerel! Won' 'ee hae one, sir? Ther's plenty here." Whilst Mrs Widger was helping him to the rest of his food, he ate the mackerel with his fingers. Finally, he soaked up the vinegar with bread, licked his finger-tips and turned towards me. "Yu'm in the courting chair, sir. That's where me an' Missis used to sit when we was courting, en' it, Annie? Du 'ee see how we've a-broke the arm? When yu gets a young lady, us'll lend 'ee thic chair. Didn' know as I'd got a little wife like thees yer, did 'ee? Ay, Annie!" He turned round and chucked her under the chin. "G'out, you dirty cat!" cried Mrs Widger, flinging herself back in the chair--yet not displeased. It was a pretty playful sight, although Mrs Widger's voice is rather like a newspaper boy's when she raises it. 2 This morning, when I arrived downstairs, the kitchen was all of a caddle. Children were bolting their breakfast, seated and afoot; were washing themselves and being washed; were getting ready and being got ready for school. Mrs Widger looked up from stitching the seat of a small boy's breeches _in situ_. "I've a-laid your breakfast in the front room." Thither I went with a book and no uncertain feeling of disappointment. [Sidenote: _BREAKFAST IN THE PARLOUR_] The front room looks out upon Alexandra Square. It is, at once, parlour, lumber room, sail and rope store, portrait gallery of relatives and ships, and larder. It is a veritable museum of the household treasures not in constant use, and represents pretty accurately, I imagine, the extent to which Mrs Widger's house-pride is able to indulge itself. But I have had enough at Salisbury of eating my meals among best furniture and in the (printed) company of great minds. The noise in the kitchen sounded jolly. Now or never, I thought. So after breakfast, I returned to the kitchen and asked for what bad behaviour I was banished to the front room. "Lor'! If yu don't mind this. On'y 'tis all up an' down here...." 3 I went yesterday to see my old landlady at Egremont Villas. She asked me where I was lodging. "At Tony Widger's, in Alexandra Square." "Why, that's in Under Town." "Yes, in Under Town." "Oh, law! I can't think how you can live in such a horrid place!"