Ah, how often do the poor
Italians, those children of the sun, pine and die when shut up in our
dismal, sordid streets! Dirt and squalor do not affect them; it is the
damp and cold and lack of sunshine that so very soon proves fatal.
A low-looking, evil-faced fellow opened the door to us and growled
acquaintance with Olinto, who, striking a match, ascended the worn,
carpetless stairs before me, apologizing for passing before me, and
saying in Italian--
"We live at the top, signore, because it is cheaper and the air is
better."
"Quite right," I said. "Quite right. Go on." And I thought I heard my
cab driving away.
It was a gloomy, forbidding, unlighted place into which I would
certainly have hesitated to enter had not my companion been my trusted
servant. I instinctively disliked the look of the fellow who had opened
the door. He was one of those hulking loafers of the peculiarly Lambeth
type. Yet the alien poor, I recollected, cannot choose where they shall
reside.
Contrary to my expectations, the sitting-room we entered on the top
floor was quite comfortably furnished, clean and respectable, even
though traces of poverty were apparent.
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