Now, this great building of Petty Wales before which I stood was once (or at least is reported to have been) an Inn of the Welsh Princes for their occasions in the City, but was, upon their long disuse of it, turned into tenements, as Northumberland House was where Mr. Jordan had formerly lodged, and was now let out to marine traders, victuallers, and such other as found it convenient to the quays. How it came about that Idonia had her dwelling here I knew not yet, nor indeed did I at that time know anything of all I am about to set down of this mansion, which, however, it is very necessary should be understood, seeing how large a space it occupies in my adventures. Besides the tenants, then, that by right inhabited there, there had grown up another sort of secret tenants that lurked amid such odd nooks and forgotten chambers herein as were overlooked, or of no advantage for the stowage of merchandise. Between these mean unnoted folk, that had crept thither like rats for shelter, and lay as close, there was maintained a sort of fearful communion and grudged acquaintanceship. But the house being strongly parted in twain by a stone wall built throughout the middle of it, from back to front, it was as though there were two separate houses, of which Idonia used the one, but these the other. And since moreover there was but one gate upon the street side of the house, the men of whom I speak, both the honest ships' brokers and the lawless poor men, perforce used a certain low-pitched postern door at the bottom of a narrow alley which ran behind the house. This door let on to a wide and decayed stair that (I was to learn) was the poor men's hall and common room; here they met and shared their stealthy mess together; here elected and deposed their captains, and celebrated their improvident espousals. Living on sufferance, stricken by poverty and terror of the law, hardly allowed as men and women, but rather as abject orts of nature, they yet preserved amongst themselves a perfect order from the very necessity of silence; and upon the least motion of discontent the mutineer was instantly seized, his head covered, and the captain's knife deep in his heart. 'Twas the women's office, then, to lay the body out decently; and about midnight four men bore it secretly to the riverside, and straightway returned.