There was very little chatter. Mostly they sat quiet, in an apathy of rest. Not that their faces expressed vacancy, but their minds were elsewhere. As I discovered, the eternal walking about erects a barrier between you and material things, and it is only the sharper and more primal needs of the body which arouse the active consciousness. My friend of the plush coat had disappeared, and presently I felt I would like to follow her. The lack of air, the smouldering smell of stale humanity affected me with a physical nausea, the like of which I had not before known.

I found the decrepit female in the passage outside⁠—I could write a whole chapter on the psychology of these aged doorkeepers⁠—and asked her for a bed. She pointed up a rickety flight of stairs lit by a faint gas-burner. The walls, originally painted brown, were black with age; the window on the landing, draped with torn curtains of Nottingham lace, had not been cleaned for generations. Up yet another flight, across a creaking landing, and into a large room filled with truckle beds.