It is one o'clock a.m., and we go down six steps into what is
facetiously termed a "breakfast parlour"; here we find a man and
woman about sixty years of age. The woman is seated at a small
table on which stands a small, evil-smelling lamp, and the man is
seated at another small table, but gets no assistance from the
lamp; he works in comparative gloom, for he is almost blind; he
works by touch.

For fifty years they have been makers of artificial flowers; both
are clever artists, and the shops of the West End have fairly
blazed with the glory of their roses. Winsome lassie's and
serene ladies have made themselves gay with their flowers.

There they sit, as they have sat together for thirty years.
Neither can read or write, but what can be done in flowers they
can do. Long hours and dark rooms have made the man almost
blind.

He suffers also from heart disease and dropsy. He cannot do
much, but he can sit, and sit, while his wife works and works,
for in the underworld married women must work if dying husbands
are to be cared for.

So for fifteen hours daily and nightly they sit at their roses!
Then they lie down on the bed we see in the corner, but sleep
does not come, for asthma troubles him, and he must be attended
and nursed.

Shall we pay another visit to that underworld room? Come, then.