The level of discussion in any public lodging house is not high. Small interest is shown in politics, and, save to a few women who have obviously drifted from different social strata, literature is a sealed book. Fashion is a fruitful topic of interest, and the passion for crossword puzzles, or the immediate equivalent, runs very high. Local gossip always holds the attention. So-and-so’s mother’s adventure with the lodger⁠—the prospect of a job for a young sister⁠—plans for the future when your own or a friend’s man comes out of gaol. Over and over again these things are talked over, and, save when an emotional tornado breaks up the calm, the conversation is leisurely, one might say spacious.

Only once did I meet a woman actuated by any interest in ideas. Ideas do not easily flourish on a starvation diet, and all the energies of the outcast are bent towards the problem of board and bed. This particular woman was about five and forty, tall, well built, with a face that had been beautiful and was still arresting. Ida had just shifted a newcomer to bed before she wished to go there⁠—a discipline from which I also suffered, though I managed to evade the clutching hand a little longer.