But, it seems, the
compensation comes in with the saving of soap, so all's well, and God's
still in heaven.
However, I rented no rooms, but returned to my own Johnny Upright's
street. What with my wife, and babies, and lodgers, and the various
cubby-holes into which I had fitted them, my mind's eye had become narrow-
angled, and I could not quite take in all of my own room at once. The
immensity of it was awe-inspiring. Could this be the room I had rented
for six shillings a week? Impossible! But my landlady, knocking at the
door to learn if I were comfortable, dispelled my doubts.
"Oh yes, sir," she said, in reply to a question. "This street is the
very last. All the other streets were like this eight or ten years ago,
and all the people were very respectable. But the others have driven our
kind out. Those in this street are the only ones left. It's shocking,
sir!"
And then she explained the process of saturation, by which the rental
value of a neighbourhood went up, while its tone went down.
"You see, sir, our kind are not used to crowding in the way the others
do. We need more room. The others, the foreigners and lower-class
people, can get five and six families into this house, where we only get
one.
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