"I have just been talking with him."

"Indeed?" said the tidy woman. " Ho!
wonder Mr. Battens talked!"

"Is he usually so silent?"

"Well, Mr. Battens is the oldest here—that
is to say, the oldest of the old gentlemen—in
point of residence."

She had a way of passing her hands over and
under one another as she spoke, that was not
only tidy but propitiatory; so I asked her if I
might look at her little sitting-room? She
willingly replied Yes, and we went into it
together: she leaving the door open, with an eye
as I understood to the social proprieties. The
door opening at once into the room without any
intervening entry, even scandal must have been
silenced by the precaution.

It was a gloomy little chamber, but clean, and
with a mug of wallflower in the window. On
the chimney-piece were two peacock's feathers,
a carved ship, a few shells, and a black profile
with one eyelash; whether this portrait purported
to be male or female passed my comprehension,
until my hostess informed me that it was her
only son, and "quite a speaking one."

"He is alive, I hope?"

"No, sir," said the widow, " he were cast
away in China." This was said with a modest
sense of its reflecting a certain geographical
distinction on his mother.

"If the old gentlemen here are not given to
talking," said I, "I hope the old ladies are?
not that you are one."

She shook her head. "You see they get so
cross."

"How is that?"

"Well, whether the gentlemen really do
deprive us of any little matters which ought to be
ours by rights, I cannot say for certain; but
the opinion of the old ones is they do. And
Mr. Battens he do even go so far as to doubt
whether credit is due to the Founder. For Mr.
Battens he do say, anyhow he got his name up
by it and he done it cheap."

"I am afraid the pump has soured Mr. Bat-
tens."

"It may be so," returned the tidy widow,
"but the handle does go very hard. Still, what
I say to myself is, the gentlemen may not pocket
the difference between a good pump and a bad
one, and I would wish to think well of them.
And the dwellings," said my hostess, glancing
round her room; "perhaps they were convenient
dwellings in the Founder's time, considered as
his time, and therefore he should not be blamed.
But Mrs. Saggers is very hard upon them."

"Mrs. Saggers is the oldest here?"

"The oldest but one. Mrs. Quinch being the
oldest, and have totally lost her head."

"And you?"

"I am the youngest in residence, and
consequently am not looked up to. But when
Mrs. Quinch makes a happy release, there will
be one below me. Nor is it to be expected that
Mrs. Saggers will prove herself immortal."

"True. Nor Mr. Battens."

"Regarding the old gentlemen," said my
widow, slightingly, "they count among
themselves. They do not count among us. Mr.
Battens is that exceptional that he have written
to the gentlemen many times and have worked
the case against them. Therefore he have took
a higher ground. But we do not, as a rule,
greatly reckon the old gentlemen."

Pursuing the subject, I found it to be
traditionally settled among the poor ladies, that the
poor gentlemen, whatever their ages, were all very
old indeed, and in a state of dotage. I also
discovered that the juniors and new comers
preserved, for a time, a waning disposition to believe
in Titbull and his trustees, but that as they
gained social standing they lost this faith, and
disparaged Titbull and all his works.

Improving my acquaintance subsequently with
this respected lady, whose name was Mrs. Mitts,
and occasionally dropping in upon her with a
little offering of sound Family Hyson in my
pocket, I gradually became familiar with the inner
politics and ways of Titbull's Alms-Houses. But
I never could find out who the trustees were, or
where they were: it being one of the fixed ideas
of the place that those authorities must be
vaguely and mysteriously mentioned as "the
gentlemen" only. The secretary of "the
gentlemen" was once pointed out to me, evidently
engaged in championing the obnoxious pump
against the attacks of the discontented Mr.
Battens; but I am not in a condition to report
further of him than that he had the sprightly
bearing of a lawyer's clerk. I had it from Mrs.
Mitts's lips in a very confidential moment, that
Mr. Battens was once "had up before the
gentlemen" to stand or fall by his accusations, and
that an old shoe was thrown after him on his
departure from the building on this dread
errand;—not ineffectually, for, the interview
resulting in a plumber, was considered to have
encircled the temples of Mr. Battens with the
wreath of victory.

In Titbull's Alms-Houses, the local society is
not regarded as good society. A gentleman or
lady receiving visitors from without, or going
out to tea, counts, as it were, accordingly;
but visitings or tea-drinkings interchanged
among Titbullians do not score. Such
interchanges, however, are rare, in consequence of
internal dissensions occasioned by Mrs. Saggers's
pail: which household article has split Titbull's
into almost as many parties as there are dwellings
in that precinct. The extremely complicated
nature of the conflicting articles of belief
on the subject prevent my stating them here
with my usual perspicuity, but I think they have
all branched off from the root-and-trunk question,
Has Mrs. Saggers any right to stand her
pail outside her dwelling? The question has
been much refined upon, but roughly stated may
be stated in those terms.

There are two old men inTitbull's Alms-Houses
who, I have been given to understand, knew
each other in the world beyond its pump and
ron railings, when they were both "in trade."
They make the best of their reverses, and are
looked upon with great contempt. They are