"'I've done with it, Fanny, for ever. They don't rob me no longer with their Bulls and their Bears.' "'A joyful hour it is to me. Lemon,' I cried, 'to hear them words. The life I've led since you took up with Bulls and Bears and all the other trash, there's no describing. But now we can be comfortable once more. Never mind the money you've lost; I'll make it up somehow.' "It was then I got the idea of letting the second floor front. As it's turned out, sir, it was the very worst idea that ever got into my head, and what it's going to lead to the Lord above only knows." CHAPTER X. DEVLIN THE BARBER TAKES FANNY'S FIRST FLOOR FRONT. "Our first lodger, sir, was a clerk in the City, and he played the bassoon that excruciating that our lives become a torment. The neighbours all complained, and threatened to bring me and Lemon and the young man and his bassoon before the magerstrates. I told the clerk that he'd have to give up the second floor front or the bassoon, and that he might take his choice. He took his choice, and went away owing me one pound fourteen, and I haven't seen the colour of his money from that day to this. "Our second lodger was a printer, who worked all night and slep all day. I could have stood him if it hadn't turned out that he'd run away from his wife, who found out where he was living, and give us no peace. She was a dreadful creature, and I never saw her sober. She smelt of gin that strong that you knew a mile off when she was coming. 'That's why I left her, Mrs. Lemon,' the poor man said to me; 'she's been the ruin of me. Three homes has she sold up, and she's that disgraced me that it makes me wild to hear the sound of her voice. The law won't help me, and what am I to do?' I made him a cup of tea, and said I was very sorry for him, but that she wasn't _my_ wife, and that I'd take it kind of him if he'd find some other lodgings. All he said was, 'Very well, Mrs. Lemon, I can't blame you; but don't be surprised if you read in the papers one day that I am brought up for being the death of her, or that I've made a hole in the water. If she goes on much longer, one of them things is sure to happen.' He went away sorrowful, and paid me honourable to the last farthing. "It wasn't encouraging, sir, but I didn't lose heart. 'The third time's lucky,' I said to myself, as I put the bill in the winder agin, little dreaming what was to come of it. It remained there nigh on a fortnight, when a knock come at the street-door. "I do all the work in the house myself. A body may be genteel without keeping a parcel of servants to eat you out of house and home, and sauce you in the bargain. A knock come at the street-door, as I said. If I'd known what I know now, the party as knocked might have knocked till he was blue in the face, or dropped down in a fit before he'd got me to answer him. But I had no suspicions, and I went and opened the door, and there I saw a tall, dark man, with a black moustache, curled up at the ends.