"
"Going--art thou going to work this time o' day?"
"No, stupid, to be sure not. Going to see the chap thou spoke on."
So they put on their hats and set out. On the way Wilson said
Davenport was a good fellow, though too much of the Methodee; that
his children were too young to work, but not too young to be cold
and hungry; that they had sunk lower and lower, and pawned thing
after thing, and that they now lived in a cellar in Berry Street,
off Store Street. Barton growled inarticulate words of no
benevolent import to a large class of mankind, and so they went
along till they arrived in Berry Street. It was unpaved: and down
the middle a gutter forced its way, every now and then forming pools
in the holes with which the street abounded. Never was the old
Edinburgh cry of Gardez l'eau! more necessary than in this street.
As they passed, women from their doors tossed household slops of
EVERY description into the gutter; they ran into the next pool,
which overflowed and stagnated. Heaps of ashes were the
stepping-stones, on which the passer-by, who cared in the least for
cleanliness, took care not to put his foot.
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