Of late it was the landlady's daughter who
answered my bell. I mention this little fact with pride, because it
proves that during the thirty or forty days of my tenancy I had produced
a favourable impression. For a fortnight past I had been spared the
unattractive sight of the domestic slave. The girls in that Bessborough
Gardens house were often changed, but whether short or long, fair or
dark, they were always untidy and particularly bedraggled, as if in a
sordid version of the fairy tale the ash-bin cat had been changed into
a maid. I was infinitely sensible of the privilege of being waited on by
my landlady's daughter. She was neat if anemic.
"Will you please clear away all this at once?" I addressed her in
convulsive accents, being at the same time engaged in getting my pipe
to draw. This, I admit, was an unusual request. Generally, on getting up
from breakfast I would sit down in the window with a book and let them
clear the table when they liked; but if you think that on that morning
I was in the least impatient, you are mistaken. I remember that I was
perfectly calm. As a matter of fact I was not at all certain that I
wanted to write, or that I meant to write, or that I had anything to
write about.
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