'They are often taken out, are they, and restored?'

'I dunno about restored,' said the apparition, who, for some occult
reason, very much objected to that word; 'they're carried into the
werkiss and put into a 'ot bath, and brought round. But I dunno
about restored,' said the apparition; 'blow THAT!'--and vanished.

As it had shown a desire to become offensive, I was not sorry to
find myself alone, especially as the 'werkiss' it had indicated
with a twist of its matted head, was close at hand. So I left Mr.
Baker's terrible trap (baited with a scum that was like the soapy
rinsing of sooty chimneys), and made bold to ring at the workhouse
gate, where I was wholly unexpected and quite unknown.

A very bright and nimble little matron, with a bunch of keys in her
hand, responded to my request to see the House. I began to doubt
whether the police magistrate was quite right in his facts, when I
noticed her quick, active little figure and her intelligent eyes.

The Traveller (the matron intimated) should see the worst first.
He was welcome to see everything. Such as it was, there it all
was.

This was the only preparation for our entering 'the Foul wards.'
They were in an old building squeezed away in a corner of a paved
yard, quite detached from the more modern and spacious main body of
the workhouse. They were in a building most monstrously behind the
time--a mere series of garrets or lofts, with every inconvenient
and objectionable circumstance in their construction, and only