Page:A Child of the Jago - Arthur Morrison.djvu/103



When Dicky Perrott and the small hunchback were hauling and struggling across the street, old Fisher came down from the top-floor back, wherein he dwelt with his son Bob, Bob's wife and two sisters, and five children; an apartment in no way so clean as the united efforts of ten people might be expected to have made it. Old Fisher, on whose grimy face the wrinkles were deposits of mud, stopped at the open door on the first floor, and, as Dicky had done, took a peep. Perplexed at the monstrous absence of dirt, and encouraged by the stillness. Old Fisher also ventured within. Nobody was in charge, and Old Fisher, mentally pricing the pink glass vases at three-pence, made for a