PASSING OF THE THIRD FLOOR BACK
By JEROME K. JEROME




PASSING OF THE THIRD FLOOR BACK

The neighbourhood of Bloomsbury Square towards four o'clock of a
November afternoon is not so crowded as to secure to the stranger, of
appearance anything out of the common, immunity from observation.
Tibb's boy, screaming at the top of his voice that _she_ was his
honey, stopped suddenly, stepped backwards on to the toes of a voluble
young lady wheeling a perambulator, and remained deaf, apparently, to
the somewhat personal remarks of the voluble young lady. Not until he
had reached the next corner--and then more as a soliloquy than as
information to the street--did Tibb's boy recover sufficient interest
in his own affairs to remark that _he_ was her bee. The voluble young
lady herself, following some half-a-dozen yards behind, forgot her
wrongs in contemplation of the stranger's back. There was this that
was peculiar about the stranger's back: that instead of being flat it
presented a decided curve. "It ain't a 'ump, and it don't look like
kervitcher of the spine," observed the voluble young lady to herself.
"Blimy if I don't believe 'e's taking 'ome 'is washing up his back."

The constable at the corner, trying to seem busy doing nothing,
noticed the stranger's approach with gathering interest. "That's an
odd sort of a walk of yours, young man," thought the constable. "You
take care you don't fall down and tumble over yourself."