Here and there e tenant would complain of high rent, and point out a cracked ceiling, a rotten piece of stairs, or something else imperatively calling for renovation.

"If you don't like the room, clear out," was the landlord's sole reply to all such speeches.
In one place they came across an old Irish woman engaged in washing.
The room was hung with reeking clothes from wall to wall.

For a time it was difficult to distinguish objects through the steam, and Waymark, making his way in, stumbled and almost fell over an open box.

From the box at once proceeded a miserable little wail, broken by as terrible a cough as a child could be afflicted with; and Waymark then perceived that the box was being used as a cradle, in which lay a baby gasping in the agonies of some throat disease, whilst drops from the wet clothing trickled on to its face.
On leaving this house, they entered Elm Court.

Here, sitting on the doorstep of the first house, was a child of apparently nine or ten, and seemingly a girl, though the nondescript attire might have concealed either sex, and the face was absolutely sexless in its savagery.