He took a half-day off to receive the first week's rent in state, and
Mrs. Randall went with him. He showed his written authority from the
last landlord, and the tenant's wife paid over the sum of nine
shillings, giving him at the same time the rent-book to sign and a slip
of written paper. This last was a week's notice to terminate the
tenancy.
"We're very well satisfied with the 'ouse," the tenant's wife said (she
was a painfully clean, angular woman, with a notable flavor of yellow
soap and scrubbing-brush about her), "but my 'usband finds it too far to
get to an' from Albert Docks mornin' and night. So we're goin' to West
'Am." And she politely ejected her visitors by opening the door and
crowding them through it.
The want of a tenant was a contingency that old Jack had never
contemplated. As long as it lasted it would necessitate the setting by
of ten and sixpence a week for the building society payments and the
ground-rent. This was serious: it meant knocking off some of the
butcher's meat, all the beer and tobacco, and perhaps a little firing.
Old Jack resolved to waste no more half-days in collecting, but to send
his missis. On the following Monday, therefore, while the tenant's wife
kept a sharp eye on the man who was piling a greengrocer's van with
chairs and tables, Mrs. Randall fixed a "To Let" bill in the front
window. In the leaves of the rent-book she found another thing of
chagrin: to wit, a notice demanding payment of poor, highway, and
general rates to the amount of one pound eighteen and sevenpence. Now,
no thought of rates and taxes had ever vexed the soul of old Jack. Of
course, he might have known that his own landlord paid the rates for his
house; but, indeed, he had never once thought of the thing, being
content with faithfully paying the rent, and troubling no more about it.
That night was one of dismal wakefulness for old Jack and his missis. If
he had understood the transaction at the lawyer's office, he would have
known that a large proportion of the sum due had been allowed him in the
final adjustment of payment to the day; and if he had known something of
the ways of rate-collecting, he would have understood that payment was
not expected for at least a month. As it was, the glories of
lease-possession grew dim in his eyes, and a landlord seemed a poor
creature, spending his substance to keep roofs over the heads of
strangers.