Amiable tenants found excuses for non-payment of rent or were dirty. One I remember brought a sofa into the house the stuffing of which I think must have been mainly bugs. I learned of this by the house becoming infested beyond belief, and seeing hordes of these odoriferous insects coming downstairs. This led to my making enquiries, when the origin or hotbed was found to be the sofa aforesaid. Nothing could have been more amiable than the manner in which my mild remonstrances were received or more suave than the manner in which my modest request for a small contribution towards the heavy expense of getting the house cleansed and fumigated was denied. Other lodgers smilingly avowed their inability to pay their rent, and playfully urged me to get it if I could. Others fought furious battles overhead, or engaged in gymnastic exercises which brought the ceilings down, or contracted an offensive and defensive alliance with each other (the top and bottom floors), with the avowed object of making us "sit up," in which I may add they were surprisingly successful. I do not say that I never had a desirable or satisfactory tenant, because I had several, but alas, I never had two sets of desirable tenants at the same time. And one of the nicest families I ever let my ground floor to, seven in number, developed scarlet fever and gave me perhaps more anxiety and put me to more expense than all the rest put together. Taking them all round though, I can see there was ample copy among them for a book on queer tenants. There were the widow and her two daughters, aged respectively seventeen and fourteen. The latter used to take turn about to beat their mother, and the screams would at once attract a crowd, for it was a populous street. Then when I interfered, the whole three would turn upon me, the mother fiercest of all, and threaten me with unheard of penalties for daring to interfere with their _menus plaisirs_. There was a fine specimen of a British working man, who for six days of the week was a credit to his country; clean, punctual, honest, and hard working. But on Saturday night he invariably got partially drunk, and after eleven P.M. amused himself until about 1 A.M. by stamping heavily up and down stairs, along the passage, past my door, out of the front door, slamming it behind him with great violence, immediately re-entering and repeating the performance, and all the time uttering the most bloodthirsty and blasphemous threats against me. Me! who never exchanged a word with him, and against whom I could have had no possible ground of complaint, except perhaps that he, being a socialist of the Keir Hardie or Will Crooks type, was bound to show his resentment for having to pay me rent.