Mrs Lirripers Lodgings | Page 5

from house to
house and up and down-stairs all day, and then their pretending to be so
particular and punctual is a most astonishing thing, looking at their
watches and saying "Could you give me the refusal of the rooms till
twenty minutes past eleven the day after to-morrow in the forenoon,
and supposing it to be considered essential by my friend from the
country could there be a small iron bedstead put in the little room upon
the stairs?" Why when I was new to it my dear I used to consider
before I promised and to make my mind anxious with calculations and
to get quite wearied out with disappointments, but now I says
"Certainly by all means" well knowing it's a Wandering Christian and I
shall hear no more about it, indeed by this time I know most of the
Wandering Christians by sight as well as they know me, it being the
habit of each individual revolving round London in that capacity to
come back about twice a year, and it's very remarkable that it runs in
families and the children grow up to it, but even were it otherwise I
should no sooner hear of the friend from the country which is a certain
sign than I should nod and say to myself You're a Wandering Christian,
though whether they are (as I HAVE heard) persons of small property
with a taste for regular employment and frequent change of scene I
cannot undertake to tell you.
Girls as I was beginning to remark are one of your first and your lasting
troubles, being like your teeth which begin with convulsions and never
cease tormenting you from the time you cut them till they cut you, and
then you don't want to part with them which seems hard but we must all
succumb or buy artificial, and even where you get a will nine times out
of ten you'll get a dirty face with it and naturally lodgers do not like
good society to be shown in with a smear of black across the nose or a
smudgy eyebrow. Where they pick the black up is a mystery I cannot
solve, as in the case of the willingest girl that ever came into a house
half-starved poor thing, a girl so willing that I called her Willing Sophy
down upon her knees scrubbing early and late and ever cheerful but

always smiling with a black face. And I says to Sophy, "Now Sophy
my good girl have a regular day for your stoves and keep the width of
the Airy between yourself and the blacking and do not brush your hair
with the bottoms of the saucepans and do not meddle with the snuffs of
the candles and it stands to reason that it can no longer be" yet there it
was and always on her nose, which turning up and being broad at the
end seemed to boast of it and caused warning from a steady gentleman
and excellent lodger with breakfast by the week but a little irritable and
use of a sitting-room when required, his words being "Mrs. Lirriper I
have arrived at the point of admitting that the Black is a man and a
brother, but only in a natural form and when it can't be got off." Well
consequently I put poor Sophy on to other work and forbid her
answering the door or answering a bell on any account but she was so
unfortunately willing that nothing would stop her flying up the
kitchen-stairs whenever a bell was heard to tingle. I put it to her "O
Sophy Sophy for goodness' goodness' sake where does it come from?"
To which that poor unlucky willing mortal--bursting out crying to see
me so vexed replied "I took a deal of black into me ma'am when I was
a small child being much neglected and I think it must be, that it works
out," so it continuing to work out of that poor thing and not having
another fault to find with her I says "Sophy what do you seriously think
of my helping you away to New South Wales where it might not be
noticed?" Nor did I ever repent the money which was well spent, for
she married the ship's cook on the voyage (himself a Mulotter) and did
well and lived happy, and so far as ever I heard it was NOT noticed in a
new state of society to her dying day.
In what way Miss Wozenham lower down on the other side of the way
reconciled it to her feelings as a lady (which she is not) to entice Mary
Anne Perkinsop from my service is best known to herself, I do not
know and I do not wish