I am not a landlord. It suits my purpose better, and is in every way
more convenient, to rent a small house on a yearly agreement. But if I
were a landlord, I would not allow any tenant of mine to do anything
that tended to undermine and honeycomb the gentility of the district. I
should take a very short method with such a tenant. I should say to him
or her: "Now, then, either this stops, or you go out this instant."
That would settle it. However, I am not a landlord.
Even as a tenant I take a very natural interest in the district in
which I live. I chose the district carefully, because it was
residential, and not commercial. The houses are not very large, and
they might be more solidly built, but they are not shops. They have
electric bells, and small strips of garden, and a generally genteel
appearance. Two of the houses in Arthur Street are occupied by
piano-tuners, and bear brass plates. I do not object to that.
Piano-tuning is a profession, and I suppose that, in a way, I should be
considered a professional man myself. Nor do I object to the letting of
apartments, as long as it is done modestly, and without large, vulgar
notice-boards. But the general tone of the district is good, and I do
most strongly object to anything which would tend to lower it.
* * * * *
It was, as far as I remember, on the Tuesday evening that Eliza rather
lost her temper about the hairpins, and said that if I kept on taking
them and taking them she did not see how she was to do her hair at all.
This seemed to me rather unjust. I had not taken the hairpins for my
own pleasure. The fact is that the waste-pipe from the kitchen sink
frequently gets blocked, and a hairpin will often do it when nothing
else will. I replied coldly, but without temper, that in future I would
have hairpins of my own.