inn, or do I not? Why should I trade with these travellers? The
universal distress sends its spatterings even as far as my poverty. Into
my cabin fall hideous drops of the far-spreading mud of mankind. I am
given up to the voracity of travellers. I am a prey--the prey of those
dying of hunger. Winter, night, a pasteboard hut, an unfortunate friend
below and without, the storm, a potato, a fire as big as my fist,
parasites, the wind penetrating through every cranny, not a halfpenny,
and bundles which set to howling. I open them and find beggars inside.
Is this fair? Besides, the laws are violated. Ah! vagabond with your
vagabond child! Mischievous pick-pocket, evil-minded abortion, so you
walk the streets after curfew? If our good king only knew it, would he
not have you thrown into the bottom of a ditch, just to teach you
better? My gentleman walks out at night with my lady, and with the glass
at fifteen degrees of frost, bare-headed and bare-footed. Understand
that such things are forbidden. There are rules and regulations, you
lawless wretches. Vagabonds are punished, honest folks who have houses
are guarded and protected. Kings are the fathers of their people. I have
my own house. You would have been whipped in the public street had you
chanced to have been met, and quite right, too. There must be order in
an established city. For my own part, I did wrong not to denounce you to
the constable. But I am such a fool! I understand what is right and do
what is wrong. O the ruffian! to come here in such a state! I did not
see the snow upon them when they came in; it had melted, and here's my
whole house swamped. I have an inundation in my home. I shall have to
burn an incredible amount of coals to dry up this lake--coals at twelve
farthings the miners' standard! How am I going to manage to fit three
into this caravan? Now it is over; I enter the nursery; I am going to
have in my house the weaning of the future beggardom of England. I shall
have for employment, office, and function, to fashion the miscarried
fortunes of that colossal prostitute, Misery, to bring to perfection