astily, and with repetition, staring the while with
incredulous eyes. Quite evidently she considered me a benevolent
lunatic, and marked me down as a useful prey. I might not be willing to
push her pram, but--The very next evening a small servant knocked at the
door with Mrs Lorrimer's compliments, and could Miss Harding lend her a
fresh egg? (Her name is Lorrimer, and the children are called Claudia,
Moreen, and Eric, and look it.) A fortnight has passed since that
encounter, and the tale of her indebtedness to me is now as follows:--

One egg.

A cup of sugar.

Two lemons.

"A bit of butter, as we're run out."

A box of matches and a candle.

"One scuttle of nice cobbles, please. We have only slack left."

Three stamps.

"Just a pinch or two of tea, as we forgot to order over Sunday."

Bridget opines that it will go from bad to worse, and recommends putting
a foot down. Gossip from the "Well" has it that if you "give in to
them, they'll take the very dinner off the table". When it comes to
that point, I shall certainly stamp hard; but in the meantime I let
things slide. I suspect Mrs Lorrimer of being too much engrossed in
herself to trouble about such a detail as providing meals for her
spouse. Without my aid he would probably have eaten his pancakes
without any lemons, and feasted on dry bread by a smouldering fire. I
like myself in the _role_ of an unknown benefactor!

Number 19, who lives directly overhead, does not borrow my food or hire
my services, but she does something far worse. Whenever I dare to poke
a fire, or play on the piano, or shut a window, or let a door bang, as
any ordinary domestic door is bound to bang in the course of a windy
day, rap, rap, rap comes a premonitory knocking on the floor, as if to
say, "Inconsiderate and selfish worm! How dare you attend to your own
comfort at the expense of your neighbours overhead? Have the goodness
to be quiet at once!" It's awfully unfair, because when they stoke
their anthracite stoves, or throw their boots on the floor at 1 a.m.
over my sleeping head, I could only retaliate by climbing to the top of
my wardrobe, and knocking the whitewash off my own ceiling. Such are
the ironies of life for the tenants of basement flats.

Besides the shoe-dropping, I am often kept awake at night by the sound
of angry voices. I sadly fear that Mr and Mrs 19 do not live together
in the peace and harmony which could be desired. Subjects of dissens