not to run away.’ I made over to her the box as well, and my watch, and gave her an I O U besides for five pounds, and then she ‘squared’ it with the detective, and he went off. “That’s how I came to be a ‘dress lodger.’ She didn’t wait long before she opened her mind to me. She up and told me that very night: ‘You’ve got a new landlady now, my fine madam,’ said she; ‘you’ve got to _work_ for your living now; to work for _me_, d’ye understand? You can’t work—can’t earn a penny without you dress spicy, and every rag you’ve got on is _mine_; and if you say one wry word, I’ll have ’em off and bundle you out.’ So what could I do or say?” continued the poor wretch, tears streaming down her really handsome face; “all the girls there were ‘dress lodgers,’ and I believe that they were glad to see me brought to their level. They only laughed to hear Mother H— go on so. I’ve been a ‘dress lodger’ ever since, not being able to get a shilling for myself, for she takes away all I get, and besides is always threatening to strip me and turn me out, and to sue me for the five pounds I owe her.” My informant asked her, “How does she exercise this amount of control over you? She is not always with you; you leave her house to walk the streets, I suppose?” “So I do, but not alone. Dress lodgers are never allowed to do that, sir. I haven’t been one long, but long enough to find that out. There’s always a ‘watcher.’ Sometimes it’s a woman—an old woman, who isn’t fit for anything else—but in general it’s a man. He watches you always, walking behind you, or on the opposite side of the way. He never loses sight of you, never fear. You daren’t so much as go into a public for a drain of gin but he is in after you in a minute, and must have his glass too, though he isn’t allowed to do it—to have the gin, I mean; and _you_ ain’t allowed it either, not a drop, if the old woman knows it. You’re supposed to walk about and look for your living, and the watcher is supposed to see that you do do it—to take care that you look sharp, and above all that you don’t take customers anywhere but _home_. And what do you get for it all? You’re half fed, and bullied day and night, and threatened to be stripped and turned out; and when you’re at home, the watcher is generally hanging about, and he’ll ‘down’ you with a ‘one’r’ in the back or side (he won’t hit you in the face, for fear of spoiling it) if Mother H— only gives him the wink, though perhaps you’ve risked getting into trouble, and stood many a glass of gin to him the night before.”