It was a squat brick building with four windows that looked down on the pavement with a short-sighted stare. On each window was written in letters of white enamel, “Well-aired beds.” A board nailed to a post by the side-door announced that tea and coffee were always ready. On the other side of the sign was an upholsterer’s, and the vulgar brightness of the Brussels carpets seemed in keeping with the slop-like appearance of the coffeehouse.
Sometimes a workman came in the morning; a couple more might come in about dinner-time. Sometimes they took rashers and bits of steak out of their pockets.
“Won’t you cook this for me, missis?”
But it was not until about nine in the evening that the real business of the house began, and it continued till one, when the last straggler knocked for admitt
