in Place. I had heard that
Patchin Place was America's Latin Quarter. I thought it would be well
to examine it. Patchin Place is a cul-de-sac behind Jefferson Market.
A bizarre female person admitted me to the house there. It was not
unreasonable to suppose that she had a certain failing. She slip-slod
before me along a remarkably dark, rough-floored and dusty hall, and up
a rickety stair. The lodging which she had to let was interesting but
not attractive. The tenant, it seemed, who had just moved away had
many faults trying to his landlady. He was very delinquent, for one
thing, in the payment of his rent. And he was somewhat addicted to
drink. This unfortunate propensity led him to keep very late hours,
and caused him habitually to fall upstairs.

Well, I told her, by way of making talk, that I believed I was held to
be a reasonably honest person, and that I was frequently sober.

"Oh," she said, "I can see that you are a gentleman--in your way," she
added, in a murmur.

So, you see, in hunting lodgings you not only see how others live, but
how you seem to others.

It is certainly curious, the places in which to dwell which one is
shown in hunting lodgings. Once I was given to view a room in which
was a strange table-like affair constructed of metal. "You wouldn't
mind, I suppose," said the lady of the lodging, "if this remained in
the room?"

"Oh, not at all," I replied. "But what is it?"

"Why, it's an operating table," she explained. "Of course, you know,"
she added, "that I'm a physician. And," she continued, "of course I
should want to make use of it now and then, but not regularly, not
every day."

To a lady with a patch over her eye with lodgings to let in Broome
Street I one time stated, by way of being communicative, that I was
often in my room a good deal doing some work there. Ah! With many
ogles and grimaces, she whispered hoarsely, with an effort at a sly
effect, that "that was all right here. She understood," she said.
Perfectly "safe place for that," it was. "The gentlemen who had the
room before were something of the same kind."

As you know, "references" frequently are demanded of one hunting
lodgings. To get into a really nice place one must really be a very
nice person. "You know, I have a daughter," sighs the really nice
landlady.

To obtain lodgings in Kensington one must be very well-to-do,
particularly if one would be on the "drawing room floor." "I like
these