In short, look at the whole infernal place, and then think of its presiding genius, my noble and opulent relative who sits within like a great bald-headed spider fat with the blood of a thousand victims, and therefore pre- eminent in the spider world.
He paused and laughed at his own metaphor, for when not depressed Andrew was a merry soul; then, continuing his reflections, he walked towards Oxford Street to take a bus for Whitechapel.
Anyway, I’m not wanted there. The old gentleman told me that pretty straight, as I meant that he should, for I can’t bear the sight of him, purse-proud, vulgar man who calls himself noble. I like Algernon, though, if he is dissipating himself to death with his weak lungs, for he has good instincts, which will never develop in this world, poor old chap. And Clara isn’t at all bad. She thinks herself deep as an ocean, and is as easy to see through as a plate-glass window. Her transparency is quite delightful; one sees her making her hand for every trick, and yet feels quite sure she will win the game, and at any rate she never makes rows; she fights with the rapier, not with the broadsword. Also at bottom she isn’t unkind.
At this point he found a bus, and having clambered on to the top of it, still followed his train of thought.
Let’s look at the other side of the picture. I criticize my uncle and Clara, and they criticize me. They look on me as a spoiled darling, ruined by an adoring mother, now happily departed, and they consider me vain because people think me clever; also opinionated because so far – well, I have done well in my small way. Further, they dislike my views of life and duty, which are opposed to the interests and instincts of their gilded, pinchbeck rank, and do not appreciate the connection with the common medical student who probably will never be heard of in the world. Nor can they understand that such an earth-worm may have ideas of his own and wish to make his private tunnel out of sight of the golden creatures who walk about in Cavendish Square. Well, Andrew, they are quite right as they see things; also, I dare say that you are offensive, though the patients in the hospital don’t think so. And you are quite right as you see the things. So the upshot of it is, that you had better go your own way and leave them to go theirs towards the oblivion which will swallow you all. But all the same, you are sorry for Algernon, the noble inheritor of West’s Whisky.
In due course Andrew reached his rooms in a little street that opened off the Whitechapel Road. It was, and probably still is, a rather squalid-looking street where dwelt small tradesmen, with a proportion of the humbler class of Jews. The houses were of stucco with basements but not tall, and the one in which Andrew lived was inhabited by the widow of a working tailor and her little daughter. Fortunately the tailor had insured his life for £1200 so that his relict was not left penniless, and being an inveterate Londoner, preferred to live on among the people whom she knew.
To occupy herself she had taken to dealing in second-hand clothes and furs in a small way and, more for company than for anything else, she took a lodger in her two upper rooms. Her name was Mrs. Josky, though from what country Josky the departed originally hailed Andrew never discovered. Probably he, or his father, was a Polish Jew. She herself was a plain, good-tempered, bustling and talkative little Cockney, full of a lively sympathy with everybody and everything. Like most of her class she was, however, somewhat superficial, except in one particular, her love for her daughter, a little girl of nine whose big dark eyes, premature development and Eastern style of budding beauty, revealed her Semitic blood. This child Mrs. Josky adored. She was her one passion in life (Josky, apparently, had produced no deep impression upon her during their brief association).
Therefore it came about that she also adored Andrew, for what reason will be seen.
After his mother’s death Andrew gave up the little house in Campden Hill where they had lived so happily, and having stored the best of the furniture together with a few heirlooms, looked for lodgings near the hospital where he was studying, with the double object of being close to his work and of observing the people of the East End.
Casually walking down Justice Street, for so it was oddly called, as he presumed because some forgotten Daniel had once come to judgment there, he reached No. 13, and observed that over the little shop of which the window was filled with old coats and rather moth-eaten fur garments, was exhibited a placard inscribed, «Good rooms to let with meals.» There were very similar placards in many other windows, but the unconventional Andrew was attracted to No. 13 by a desire to defy superstition.
So in due course he became Mrs. Josky’s tenant, and very comfortable she made him from the first. A little later on, however, had he been living in a good house with a devoted mother and a staff of well-trained servants, he could not have been better looked after. It happened thus. Shortly after he took up his abode in Justice Street, the little girl, who was named Lauretta, or Laurie for short, contracted pneumonia very badly indeed. Although he was not yet a qualified practitioner, Andrew diagnosed the disease at once, with the result that implore as he would, Mrs. Josky absolutely refused to call in any doctor, declaring that young Mr. West was cleverer than all of them put together, and that he and no one else should attend Laurie. Nor would she have a nurse, not from motives of economy, but because of a kind of fierce maternal jealousy which prevented her from allowing any other woman to come near her child. The end of it was that Andrew had to double the part of physician and night-nurse, rather an exhausting business for a young man who worked all day, especially as, this being his first case, he was filled with doubts and anxieties.
Well, by good luck or good management, with the accompaniment of the most devoted care, he pulled the child through. When he was able to assure Mrs. Josky that she was quite out of danger, that good woman threw her arms round his neck, kissed him and said that she would die for him if need be, as no doubt she would have been quite willing to do.
After this Andrew was more comfortable than ever in those lodgings and lived like a fighting-cock. In time he slowly awoke to the fact that his bills were singularly small for the amount of food that he consumed, and on investigation, discovered that Mrs. Josky was practically supporting him. Then there was a row, also there were tears and he threatened to go away. He insisted that she should produce books to show the cost of what she bought for him. Mrs. Josky, whose leading characteristic was obstinacy, refused to do anything of the sort and even accused herself of theft in the sense of feeding herself and her child out of his provisions. At last they compromised. He paid more for his board; Mrs. Josky concealed the books and he lived even better than he had done before. Moreover, all his clothes were pressed and mended and, although he knew it not, some of his undergarments, such as shirts, were made for nothing. No wonder he had declared to Clara that £200 a year was wealth to an East End doctor!
Andrew arrived at Justice Street at about half-past four, the time at which he was accustomed to return from the hospital and have tea. The pretty little Laurie, who loved him almost as much as her mother did, was, as usual, looking out for him from the doorstep, and seeing him while yet a long way off, called out to her mother in the back regions, informing her of his advent. Mrs. Josky called back that all was ready, and proceeded to kill the fatted calf by breaking two fresh eggs, which were expensive just then, into the frying-pan. To be accurate, she broke three, for having conceived suspicions of Number Two, she put it aside for her own consumption, rather liking the taste of straw, as she explained to Laurie.
Andrew arrived, kissed Laurie according to the rule, searched for and found in his velveteen coat a little packet of chocolate creams of which she was extremely fond, and went up to his room to tidy himself for, as it happened, he had an engagement that afternoon. When he came into the sitting- room, after washing his hands and brushing his hair, he was met by Mrs. Josky bearing a spotless tray with a real china teapot that she had obtained from some one in temporary difficulties in exchange for a pair of second-hand boots, with a cup and muffin dish full of hot buttered toast to match, and followed by Laurie, who supported in her thin little hands the dish with the fried eggs.
«Good gracious! Mrs. Josky,» he said, «I don’t want all that. Besides, I am going out to tea.»
«Then you should have said so earlier,» she replied with firmness, adding, «not but what I guessed it when I saw that letter in a lady’s writing this morning; also that you had bought