Page:While the Billy Boils, 1913.djvu/224

 go to your room, lie down on the bed, and snatch twenty minutes' rest from that terrible unemployed restlessness which, you know, is sure to drag you to your feet to pace the room or tramp the pavement even before your bodily weariness has nearly left you. So you start up the narrow, stuffy little flight of steps called the 'stairs.' Three small doors open from the landing―a square place of about four feet by four. The first door is yours; it is open, and

Decided odour of bedroom dust and 'fluff,' damped and kneaded with cold soapsuds. Rear view of a girl covered with a damp, draggled, dirt-coloured skirt, which gapes at the waistband from the 'body,' disclosing a good glimpse of soiled stays (ribs burst), and yawns behind over a decidedly dirty white petticoat, the slit of which last, as she reaches forward and backs out convulsively, half opens and then comes together in an unsatisfactory, startling, tantalising way, and allows a hint of a red flannel under-something. The frayed ends of the skirt lie across a hopelessly-burst pair of elastic sides which rest on their inner edges―toes out―and jerk about in a seemingly undecided manner. She is damping and working up the natural layer on the floor with a piece of old flannel petticoat dipped occasionally in a bucket which stands by her side, containing about a quart of muddy water. She looks round and exclaims, 'Oh, did you want to come in, Mr. Careless?' Then she says she'll be done in a minute; furthermore she remarks that if you want to come in you won't be in her road. You don't;―you go down to the dining-room―parlour―sitting-room―nursery and stretch