At that period my digestive faculties still were holding up miraculously, or my sufferings on the homeward tramp would have been acute. As a fact I reached home in rare spirits, and almost--so cheery was I--cancelled the notice I had given that morning of my intention to vacate the current garret. But the smell of the house smiting my forest freshness as I stepped over the boards, jammed in its threshold to keep crawling children in, saved me from that indiscretion. There were fewer drunkards, less fighting, and not many more insects in that house than in most of my places of residence; but the smell of it I shall never, never forget. In that respect it was the vilest in a vile series of slum dwellings, and many and many a time had caused me to revile my naturally keen olfactory organs. I had endured it for almost a month, and would suffer its unmanning horrors no more. Indeed, I would suffer nothing like it again. Why should I? My earnings were increasing. I would escape from the whole district, its miseries, its smells, its infamies, and its thousand dehumanising degradations. I would emigrate. Yes, that tramp in Epping Forest was quite epoch-making. It came after more than two years of struggle in London. I had made fully five pounds in the past month. I had actually laid aside a couple of sovereigns, and doubtless that salient fact emboldened me. Also, I had had a number of quite meaty meals of late. But the wild stamping to and fro under trees, the sight of the bonny, white-sterned rabbits at play, the copious tea in a pleached arbour, the clean forest air--these I am sure had been as a fiery stimulant to my drooping manhood. I went to bed full of the most reckless resolves, and astonishingly light-hearted. In the morning, having feasted (as well as the prevailing smell permitted) upon an apple, brown bread, and tea--butter was 'off' that day, I remember--I set forth upon a prospecting tour, working westward from my north-easterly abode, through Holloway, Finsbury, the Camden Road, and such places, into the neighbourhood of Regent's Park. The park, which was strange to me, pleased me greatly; as did also certain minor streets in its neighbourhood, a mews which I found quaint and quite rural in its suggestions, and sundry white houses with green shutters which, for some reason, I remember I called 'discreet.' There was nothing here that looked poor enough for me, but none the less I inquired at one or two of the smaller houses whose windows held cards indicating that rooms were to let in them. At length, in a quiet and decent thoroughfare called Howard Street, I happened upon Mrs. Pelly's house--No. 37. The girl who answered my knock had a pleasant little face, and a soft, kindly tone in speaking. I supposed she was not more than one-and-twenty, perhaps less. Her mother was out, she said, but she would show me the only vacant room they had. Indeed--with a little smile--she really did more for the lodgers than her mother did.