This is the back end, you know." "Aye," answered the tailor, with a shrug that resembled a shiver.
"And they say," continued Ralph, "the back end is always the bare end." "And they say, too," said Sim, "change is leetsome, if it's only out of bed into the beck!" The tailor laughed loud, and then stopped himself with a suddenness quite startling.

The jest sounded awful on his lips.

"You say the back end's the bare end," he said, coming up to where Ralph sat in pain and amazement; "mine's all bare end.

It's nothing but 'bare end' for some of us.

Yesterday morning was wet and cold--you know how cold it was.
Well, Rotha had hardly gone out when a tap came to the door, and what do you think it was?
A woman, a woman thin and blear-eyed.