ellows-mender. On the
first floor came Ernest, with his two rooms which he furnished
comfortably, for one must draw the line somewhere. The two upper floors
were parcelled out among four different sets of lodgers: there was a
tailor named Holt, a drunken fellow who used to beat his wife at night
till her screams woke the house; above him there was another tailor with
a wife but no children; these people were Wesleyans, given to drink but
not noisy. The two back rooms were held by single ladies, who it seemed
to Ernest must be respectably connected, for well-dressed gentlemanly-
looking young men used to go up and down stairs past Ernest's rooms to
call at any rate on Miss Snow--Ernest had heard her door slam after they
had passed. He thought, too, that some of them went up to Miss
Maitland's. Mrs Jupp, the landlady, told Ernest that these were brothers
and cousins of Miss Snow's, and that she was herself looking out for a
situation as a governess, but at present had an engagement as an actress
at the Drury Lane Theatre. Ernest asked whether Miss Maitland in the top
back was also looking out for a situation, and was told she was wanting
an engagement as a milliner. He believed whatever Mrs Jupp told him.

CHAPTER LIV

This move on Ernest's part was variously commented upon by his friends,
the general opinion being that it was just like Pontifex, who was sure to
do something unusual wherever he went, but that on the whole the idea was
commendable. Christina could not restrain herself when on sounding her
clerical neighbours she found them inclined to applaud her son for
conduct which they idealised into something much more self-denying than
it really was. She did not quite like his living in such an
unaristocratic neighbourhood; but what he was doing would probably get
into the newspapers, and then great people would take notice of him.
Besides, it would be very cheap; down among these poor people he could
live for next to nothing, and might put by a great deal of his income. As
for temptations, there could be few or none in such a place as that. This
argument about cheapness was the one with which she most successfully met
Theobald, who grumbled more _suo_ that he had no sympathy with his son's
extravagance and conceit. When Christina pointed out to him that it
would be cheap he replied that there was something in that.

On Ernest himself the effect was to confirm the good opinion of himself
which h