De Profundis Author:William Gilbert Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER III. THROUGH LOSING HIS PROCESS AT LAW, THE HERO OBTAINS BOTH A LOCAL HABITATION AND A NAME. T has been before stated that the dwelling of Mr... more »s. Sparkes was in Blue Anchor Yard, York Street, Westminster. To judge from its entrance from the street, a more undesirable residence for a person fond of a picturesque locality could hardly have been imagined. The narrow gateway by which it is entered has a most squalid appearance, and the houses in the yard, all of which are densely inhabited, betray, with the majority of their tenants, an idea of dirtiness hardly in keeping with the reputation which Mrs. Sparkes had acquired of being of the strictest personal cleanliness, as well as a neat and skilful washerwoman. The fact is, she would hardly have rented the house she occupied had her taste only been consulted, but as goodhouse accommodation for her line of business was extremely scarce in Westminster, and as the house she lived in suited her occupation admirably, her own private feelings were set aside by her on the occasion, and she was only too well content with her good fortune in being able to obtain it at the moderate rent with which she was charged. It was situated on the right-hand side of the court, nearly as you enter it, and the last house in it. The messuage or tenement abutting on Gardner's Lane, as the owner called it in the agreement she held of him, consisted of four rooms, two above and two below, with a small back shed, and a narrow yard about thirty feet long, for drying the clothes. The yard was enclosed by windowless backs of houses on the northern, eastern, and western sides, but open to the south, with the exception of a wall, fortified by broken bottles, and about seven feet high, so that it formed a strong barrier against dishonest visitors...« less