His nether garments, on the other hand, although they resembled the coat in their conveniences for ventilation, being all in rags and tatters, appeared to have been borrowed from a smaller pair of legs even than those owned by my present possessor, for they--at least one leg--barely reached half way below the knee, while the other stopped short very little lower.

Altogether, the boy was as nondescript and "scarecrowy" an object as one could well expect to meet with.
As he left the hall he gave a quick look round to assure himself no one was following him; then he darted across the road and proceeded to shuffle forward in so extremely leisurely and casual a way, that very few of the people who met him would have imagined he carried a stolen watch in his pocket.
Such a hole as it was! As soon as I had sufficiently recovered from my astonishment to look about me, I became aware that I was by no means the sole occupant of the receptacle he was pleased to designate by the title of a pocket, but which other people would have called a slit in the lining of his one sound coat-tail.
There was a stump of a clay pipe, with tobacco still hot in it.

There was a greasy piece of string, a crust of bread, a halfpenny, a few brass buttons, and a very greasy and very crumpled and very filthy copy of a "penny awful" paper.

I need hardly say that this scrutiny did not afford me absolute pleasure.

In the first place, my temporary lodging was most unsavoury and unclean; and in the second place, there was not one among my many fellow-lodgers who could be said to be in my position in life, or to whom I felt in any way tempted to address any inquiry.
This difficulty, however, was settled for me.