Mr. Glentworthy is called.  Mr. Glentworthy, with a profane expletive, pops his head out at the top of the stairs, and inquires who wants him.  The visitors have advanced into a little, narrow passage, lumbered with all sorts of rubbish, and swarming with flies.  Mr. Saddlerock (for this is the old man’s name) seems in a declining mood, the building seems in a declining mood, Mr. Glentworthy seems in a declining mood-everything you look at seems in a declining mood.  “As if I hadn’t enough to do, gettin’ off this dead cribber!” interpolates Mr. Glentworthy, withdrawing his wicked face, and taking himself back into a room on the left.

“He’s not so bad a man, only it doesn’t come out at first;” pursues Mr. Saddlerock, continuing to rub his head, and to fuss round on his toes.  His mind, Madame Montford verily believes stuck in a fog.  “We must wait a bit,” says the old man, his face seeming to elongate.  “You can look about-there’s not much to be seen, and what there is-well, it’s not the finest.”  Mr. Saddlerock shuffles his feet, and then shuffles himself into a small side room.  Through the building there breathes a warm, sickly atmosphere; the effect has left its marks upon the sad, waning countenances of its unfortunate inmates.

Tom and Madame Montford set out to explore the establishment.  They enter room after room, find them small, dark, and filthy beyond description.  Some are crowded with half-naked, flabby females, whose careworn faces, and well-starved aspect, tells a sorrowful tale of the chivalry.  An abundant supply of profane works, in yellow and red covers, would indeed seem to have been substituted for food, which, to the shame of our commissioners, be it said, is a scarce article here.  Cooped up in another little room, after the fashion of wild beasts in a cage, are seven poor idiots, whose forlorn condition, sad, dull countenances, as they sit round a table, staring vacantly at one another, like mummies in contemplation, form a wild but singularly touching picture.  Each countenance pales before the seeming study of its opponent, until, enraptured and amazed, they break out into a wild, hysterical laugh.  And thus, poisoned, starved, and left to die, does time with these poor mortals fleet on.

The visitors ascend to the second story.  A shuffling of feet in a room at the top of the stairs excites their curiosity.  Mr. Glentworthy’s voice grates harshly on the ear, in language we cannot insert in this history.  “Our high families never look into low places-chance if the commissioner has looked in here for years,” says Tom, observing Madame Montford protect her inhaling organs with her perfumed cambric.  “There is a principle of economy carried out-and a very nice principle, too, in getting these poor out of the world as quick as possible.”  Tom pushes open a door, and, heavens! what a sight is here.  He stands aghast in the doorway-Madam, on tip-toe, peers anxiously in over his shoulders.  Mr. Glentworthy and two