Richard Manx rented a room in the garret of Mrs. Preedy's house, for which he had to pay three shillings a week. It was furnished, and the rent could not be considered unreasonable. Certainly there was in the room nothing superfluous. There were a truckle bed, with a few worn-out bed clothes, a japanned chest of drawers, so ricketty that it had to be propped up with bits of paper under two of its corners, a wreck of a chair, an irregular piece of looking-glass hooked on to the wall, an old fender before the tiniest fire-place that ever was seen, a bent bit of iron for a poker, an almost bottomless coal scuttle, a very small trunk containing Richard Manx's personal belongings, a ragged towel, and a lame washstand with toilet service, every piece of which was chipped and broken. In an auction the lot might have brought five shillings; no broker in his senses would have bid higher for the rubbish. "If you 'aven't come to pay your rent," demanded Mrs. Preedy, "what _'ave_ you come for?" Richard Manx craned his neck forward till his face was at least six inches in advance of his body, and replied in a hoarse whisper: "I have--a--heard it once more again!" The effect of these words upon Mrs. Preedy was extraordinary. No sooner had they escaped her lodger's lips than she started from her chair, upsetting her glass of gin in her excitement, and, pulling him into the room, shut the door behind him. Then she opened the door of the little cupboard in which the servant slept, and called softly: "Becky!" and again, "Becky! Becky!" The girl must have been a sound sleeper, for even when her mistress stepped to her bedside, and passed her hand over her face, she did not move or speak. Returning to the kitchen, Mrs. Preedy closed the door of the sleeping closet, and said to Richard Manx: "Look 'ere, young man, I don't want none of your nonsense, and, what's more, I won't stand none!" And instantly took the heart out of her defiance by crying, in an appealing tone: "Do you want to ruin me?"