there seemed
to form a world apart, with which Keith never became very well
acquainted. But on the ground-floor of that part was the laundry, used
in turn by every household in the entire house and regarded by the boy
as a far-off, adventurous place until he had been allowed to visit it a
couple of times.

The building facing the lane and that running along the courtyard had a
stairway in common at the corner where they joined. Its stairs and
landings were of stone, uncarpeted, and lighted in the day by a window
on each floor and at night by a single gas jet on each landing. At the
foot of the lowermost flight of stairs was a long and dark passage that
turned at a right angle and finally reached the lane after what seemed a
long walk. Branching to the right, at the foot of the stairs, was
another passage from which the cellar was reached after you had used all
your strength to push open a huge iron door that squeaked uncannily on
its stiff hinges.

The flats on the second and third floors ran straight through from the
lane to the rear building, but on the fourth floor, where Keith lived,
another family occupied the rooms looking upon the courtyard. And there
lived Jonas, the only other child in the house during Keith's
earliest years.

Jonas' father was a compositor--a tall, lank, hollow-eyed man with a bad
cough. His mother was a woman of the people, angular and taciturn. Jonas
himself was pale and gawky and shy.

Those two families, living within a few feet of each other and meeting
daily on the common landing, had little more intercourse than if they
had been parted by miles of desert. The reserved and slightly eccentric
character of the neighbours had something to do with this separation,
but social distinctions counted for more. A compositor was, after all, a
mere workman, and Keith felt instinctively that his mother looked with
kindly contempt at the more primitive ways of the adjoining household.
Now and then he was permitted to go and play for a little while with
Jonas, who was a year older, but the other boy hardly ever entered
Keith's home. Nor was their playing much of a success. Jonas was
slow-witted and reserved, while alertness and frankness were among
Keith's most characteristic traits. But differences of temperament
accounted only in part for their failure to come together. Keith felt as
if a wall of some kind stood between them, and as if the eyes watching
from the other side of that wall were dis