"I say, can you let a lodging?"

These words I discharged carelessly over my shoulder at a stout and
elderly woman, of whose fare I was partaking in a greasy coffee-house
down near the Pool and not very far from Limehouse.

"Oh yus," she answered shortly, my appearance possibly not approximating
the standard of affluence required by her house.

I said no more, consuming my rasher of bacon and pint of sickly tea in
silence. Nor did she take further interest in me till I came to pay my
reckoning (fourpence), when I pulled all of ten shillings out of my
pocket. The expected result was produced.

"Yus, sir," she at once volunteered; "I 'ave nice lodgin's you'd likely
tyke a fancy to. Back from a voyage, sir?"

"How much for a room?" I inquired, ignoring her curiosity.

She looked me up and down with frank surprise. "I don't let rooms, not
to my reg'lar lodgers, much less casuals."

"Then I'll have to look along a bit," I said, with marked disappointment.

But the sight of my ten shillings had made her keen. "I can let you have
a nice bed in with two hother men," she urged. "Good, respectable men,
an' steady."

"But I don't want to sleep with two other men," I objected.