at the expense of
people--especially widows with large families, or women, in the case
of Jones's Alley--who couldn't afford it without being half-starved, or
running greater and unspeakable risks which "society" is not supposed to
know anything about.

So the agent was right, according to his lights. The landlord had
recently turned out a family who had occupied one of his houses for
fifteen years, because they were six weeks in arrears. He let them take
their furniture, and explained: "I wouldn't have been so lenient with
them only they were such old tenants of mine." So the landlord was
always in the right according to _his_ lights.

But the agent naturally wished to earn his living as peacefully and
as comfortably as possible, so, when the accident occurred, he put the
matter so persistently and strongly before the landlord that he said at
last: "Well, tell her to go to White, the contractor, and he'll send a
man to do what's to be done; and don't bother me any more."

White had a look at the place, and sent a plasterer, a carpenter, and a
plumber. The plasterer knocked a bigger hole in the ceiling and filled
it with mud; the carpenter nailed a board over the hole in the floor;
the plumber stopped the leak in the kitchen, and made three new ones in
worse places; and their boss sent the bill to Mrs Aspinall.

She went to the contractor's yard, and explained that the landlord was
responsible for the debt, not she. The contractor explained that he had
seen the landlord, who referred him to her. She called at the landlord's
private house, and was referred through a servant to the agent. The
agent was sympathetic, but could do nothing in the matter--it wasn't
his business; he also asked her to put herself in his place, which she
couldn't, not being any more reasonable than such women are in such
cases. She let things drift, being powerless to prevent them from doing
so; and the contractor sent another bill, then a debt collector and
then another bill, then the collector again, and threatened to take
proceedings, and finally took them. To make matters worse, she was two
weeks in arrears with the rent, and the wood-and-coalman's man (she
had dealt with them for ten years) was pushing her, as also were her
grocers, with whom she had dealt for fifteen years and never owed a
penny before.

She waylaid the landlord, and he told her shortly that he couldn't build
houses and give them away, and keep them in repair afterward