They were the greatest possible eyesore, and they had no right to be in that neighbourhood at all.

They were little mean dwellings painted a chocolate brown.

In the garden patches there was nothing but cabbage stalks, sick hens and tomato cans.

The very smoke coming out of their chimneys was poverty-stricken.

Little rags and shreds of smoke, so unlike the great silvery plumes that uncurled from the Sheridans' chimneys.