Page:Gissing - The Nether World, vol. II, 1889.djvu/231

 generally, it was one of those bits of human inconsistency over which the observer smiles, and which should be recommended to good people in search of arguments for the equality of men.

After that little dialogue. Bob went home in a disagreeable temper. To begin with, his mood had been ruffled, for the landlady at his lodgings—the fourth to which he had removed this year—was “nasty” about a week or two of unpaid rent, and a man on whom he had counted this evening for the payment of a debt was keeping out of his way. He found Pennyloaf sitting on the stairs with her two children, as usual; poor Pennyloaf had not originality enough to discover new expressions of misery, and that one bright idea of donning her best dress was a single instance of ingenuity. In obedience to Jane Snowdon, she kept herself and the babies and the room tolerably clean, but everything was done in the most dispirited way.

“What are you kicking about here for?” asked Bob impatiently. “That’s how that kid gets its cold—of course it is!—Ger [sic] out!”