“Come along then,” said Meg, leading the way through passages and up staircases more foul and nauseating to sight and smell than even the middle of the streets had been—for the streets do sometimes get washed off by rain, whereas these tenement-house passages seem never to have that advantage. Everage followed his guide up four flights of stairs, noticing, as he passed along the halls of each floor, through the open or half-open doors, heart-sickening and revolting sights of vice and misery within the room. At the top of the last flight of stairs himself and his young guide reached the attic landing. She beckoned and led him to a door, which she opened. He followed her into a back room, with a low, sloping ceiling. It was wretchedly furnished, or rather bare of furniture,—a bed which was a mere heap of foul rags, a shaky little wooden table, a rickety chair, a rusty iron kettle, and a cracked tea-cup and saucer were the only means and appliances of comfort or necessity there. The only person in the room was old Mother Rooter, who was squatted on the only chair, with her elbows on her knees and her head in her hands. She got up to meet her visitor, and gave him her chair, saying: “You are very welcome to my poor place, kind gentleman. Sit down, sir.” And she seated herself on the side of the bed, that he might not hesitate to take the chair. He looked at the proffered seat, and took from his pocket a newspaper, and spread over the bottom of the chair before sitting down on it. “Ah, sir, I see—you gentlefolks blame us a deal for being dirty, but how can we help it? We can’t get bread enough to eat; and where are we to get the extra penny to buy a bit of soap to wash ourselves and our houses, or the horn-comb to red up our hair, not to say the sixpence to buy a broom. Ah, sir, you gentlefolks should know what you are a-talking on before you blame us, poor creatures, for dirt.” “I am not blaming you,” said Everage. And then, to change the subject, he remarked: “You are very high up here; you are high up in the world in one sense, if you are not in another.” “Ah, yes, sir! but what am I to do? The garret or the cellar is the choice us poor creatures has to make. All the house between them is too dear for the likes of us. And be the same token, there’s little to choose atween them. It’s hard on an ole ’oman like me to live up here; and when, of an evening, I’m a-panting up all these stairs,—sir, there’s ninety on ’em,—steps, I mean—I know it to my sorrow, for I have counted on ’em often, as I panted up ’em, and stopped on every landing to catch my breath,—well, sir, I often think it would be better to live in a cellar. But then, I thinks, as once I _did_ live in a cellar and catch the rheumatism by it. So on the whole, I says to myself, it is better to climb and to pant nor to lie flat on my back and groan.”