came for Johnny Upright to find me a lodging, which he did, not half-a-
dozen doors away, in his own respectable and opulent street, in a house
as like to his own as a pea to its mate.




CHAPTER III--MY LODGING AND SOME OTHERS


From an East London standpoint, the room I rented for six shillings, or a
dollar and a half, per week, was a most comfortable affair. From the
American standpoint, on the other hand, it was rudely furnished,
uncomfortable, and small. By the time I had added an ordinary typewriter
table to its scanty furnishing, I was hard put to turn around; at the
best, I managed to navigate it by a sort of vermicular progression
requiring great dexterity and presence of mind.

Having settled myself, or my property rather, I put on my knockabout
clothes and went out for a walk. Lodgings being fresh in my mind, I
began to look them up, bearing in mind the hypothesis that I was a poor
young man with a wife and large family.

My first discovery was that empty houses were few and far between--so far
between, in fact, that though I walked miles in irregular circles over a
large area, I still remained between. Not one empty house could I find--a
conclusive proof that the district was "saturated."

It being plain that as a poor young man with a family I could rent no
houses at all in this most undesirable region, I next looked for rooms,