"Do you live here?" he asked.

"Yes, sir; I do."

At the moment a half-bestial sound below, accompanied by uncertain
footsteps, announced the arrival of a drunken bricklayer.

"There's Joe Bradley," she said, in some alarm. "Come into my room,
sir, till he's gone up; there's no harm in him when he's sober, but he
ain't been sober for a week now."

Stephen obeyed; and she, taking a key from her pocket, and unlocking a
door on the landing, led him into a room to which his back-parlour was
a paradise. She offered him the only chair in the room, and took her
place on the edge of the bed, which showed a clean but much-worn
patchwork quilt. Charley slept on the bed, and she on a shake-down in
the corner. The room was not untidy, though the walls and floor were
not clean; indeed there were not in it articles enough to make it
untidy withal.

"Where do you go on Sundays?" asked Stephen.

"Nowheres. I ain't got nobody," she added, with a smile, "to take me
nowheres."

"What do you do then?"

"I've plenty to do mending of Charley's trousers. You see they're only
shoddy, and as fast as I patch 'em in one place they're out in