Pennyloaf sped homewards. She lived in Shooter's Gardens, a
picturesque locality which demolition and rebuilding have of late
transformed. It was a winding alley, with paving raised a foot above
the level of the street whence was its main approach. To enter from
the obscurer end, you descended a flight of steps, under a low
archway, in a court itself not easily discovered. From without, only
a glimpse of the Gardens was obtainable; the houses curved out of
sight after the first few yards, and left surmise to busy itself
with the characteristics of the hidden portion. A stranger bold
enough to explore would have discovered that the Gardens had a blind
offshoot, known simply as 'The Court.' Needless to burden
description with further detail; the slum was like any other slum;
filth, rottenness, evil odours, possessed these dens of superfluous
mankind and made them gruesome to the peering imagination. The
inhabitants of course felt nothing of the sort; a room in Shooter's
Gardens was the only kind of home that most of them knew or desired.
The majority preferred it, on all grounds, to that offered them in a
block of model lodgings not very far away; here was independence,
that is to say, the liberty to be as vile as they pleased.
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