those unhappy little houses wherein our industrial cities rot, save that its glass was a little dirtier, its doorstep more neglected, its paint more faded than that of its neighbours.
For a moment the Man with the Broken Nose hesitated. The day was extremely young. Mr. Montague might not care to be aroused. It was important for him and for many like him that he should keep Mr. Montague's good will. Then he remembered that in a little time the Knocker-up would come his rounds, and that that wretched street of slaves would wake to work for the rich in the city.
The thought decided him. He rapped gently with his knuckles on the ground floor window. There was no response. He rapped a second time. A terse but unpleasant oath assured him that he had aroused whoever slept therein. A minute or two later he heard shuffling slippers moving cautiously across the passage. The door was opened a crack, and a very short man, very old, hump-backed one would almost say, with a beard of prodigious growth and beastliness tucked into a dressing-gown more greasy than the beard, stood in the darkness behind the half-open door.
"I do 'umbly beg pardon," began the Man
