In some of these houses every thing about you is cold, hard, bright, and uncomfortably clean, as if always ready to be let--"got up," as it were, to strike every new comer. If you drop a crumb on the carpet it is picked up before your face, by way of a gentle hint; a stain of ink on the table-cover you would never hear the last of. Some mysterious kind of white cabbage-network covers the back of the easy chair, and lies grinning at you, full of holes, all over the sofa; you see nothing but knots, and would as soon think of finding ease were you to lie down on a stone floor strewn with bullets as on that hard white knotted cordage. Everything in the room is for show, nothing for comfort. The mantelpiece is covered with articles which are neither ornamental nor useful: shells, four a shilling; a couple of white delf candlesticks; two old hand-screens, picked up dirt-cheap at an auction; in the centre three ugly-shaped earthenware articles, red, blue, and gilt tarnished, holding about a dozen spills each, which are never used--you are sick of seeing them reflected in the long mirror which was bought a bargain. If you have a handful of fire in the cold glittering grate on a bitter winter night, it makes you shiver to look at it: the poker looks so bright and chilling, you are afraid to touch it; and if a piece of coal falls out, they come in to see if you called, for they are always listening. Sometimes you shove your boot toe into the fire in utter desperation, or walk up and down the room, and storm heartily for exercise. You feel as if you would like to kick the couple of cursed carpet-covered hassocks about to warm you, and end by knocking down the fire-irons, to break the homeless silence. Never, in such places, on any account, begin to sharpen your razors near midnight, for the Evil One seems ever to be lurking in the gloomy corners of such cheerless houses, and there is no knowing what thoughts he might put into your head. These are the class of houses in which you see neat bills in the windows, announcing "Respectable Apartments for Single Gentlemen." They never admit children into these old, keen, money-making lodging-houses: the echoes of those houses are never broken by childish laughter, nor these creaking floors shaken by merry romps; they like your shy, silent, bashful man, who submits quietly to every imposition; for they care not what he thinks, so long as he complains not openly. In some streets you find lodging-houses inhabited by three distinct classes, who are as much separated from each other as if they lived fifty miles apart. The poor inhabitant in the attic may be dying while the first-floor lodger is entertaining a party of friends; and although they have both dwelt under the same roof for years, it is likely enough that not a single word was ever exchanged between them.