was the response wafted into the recesses of my auricular appendages—so chilling it was that I incontinently sneezed thrice.

“There seems,” said the student, “to have been a decided diversity of opinion among the learned judges in that case.”

“Yes, indeed,” I replied. “But the point has been made clear in a more recent case, in which all the judges took the same view of the extent of the liability.”[391]

“What was that decision, sir?”

“That the law imposes no obligation on a lodging-house keeper to take care of the goods of his boarder. A lodger who was just about to change his quarters, was out of his room, and the landlord allowed a stranger to enter to look at it; the latter carried off some of the boarder’s property, and when the owner sued the landlord the court gave him to understand that he must himself bear the loss. Earle, C. J., said that the judges had decided that even if the things had been stolen by a member of the household the proprietor would not be liable. He went on to remark that he was most particularly averse to affirming, for the first time, that a lodging-house keeper has the duty cast upon him of taking care of his guest’s goods; he saw great difficulties in so holding, and thought it would be casting upon him an undefined responsibility which would be most inconvenient; considering that lodgers consist of all classes—from the highest to the lowest—one could hardly exaggerate the mischief that would ensue from holding the proprietor liable. It would be impossible, his lordship continued, to lay down any definite test of liability; each case must be left to the discretion or caprice of a jury; the liability of the keeper of the house must vary according to the situation of the premises and a variety of circumstances too numerous to mention. If, on the other hand, the law is that the lodger must take care of his own goods, it only imposes upon him the same care which he is bound to take when he walks the streets; he may always secure his valuables by carrying them about with him, or by placing them specially in the custody of the keeper of the house.”

“But it appears rather hard to compel a man to carry his goods about with him wherever he goes, or else hand them over to the boarding-house keeper who might be down in the kitchen cooking dinner or washing cups and saucers; besides, she or he might refuse to take care of them,” captiously remarked one of the company.

“Notwithstanding all that, I have told you the law correctly, and Byles, J., remarked once that a contrary decision would cast upon the proprietor ‘a frightful amount of liability,’” I replied.

“Did the judges in the case you just referred to say anything about the open door case?” questioned the earnest inquirer after knowledge.

“Yes, and held that the whole tenor of the judgment in it was that a boarding-house keeper is not bound to take such reasonable degree of care of the goods of his guest as a prudent man may reasonably be expected to take of his own.”

“It seems strange,” urged the youth—by the way, a careless, heedless young fellow was he—“that such people should in no way be liable to look after the property of their boarders.”

“I did not say exactly that. They are of course liable where a loss of a lodger’s goods has resulted from gross negligence on their part, or they themselves have been guilty of some misdeed.”[392]

“Those two cases, I think,” said one who had been a silent listener hitherto, “were both decided in England; but what say our American judges on the point?”

“So far as they have spoken,” I replied, “they have, as a rule, corroborated and agreed with the sentiments of their ermined and bewigged fellows across the ocean. The Supreme Court of Tennessee decided that an innkeeper was not liable for the clothing of a boarder stolen from his room, without the former’s fault, although he would be for that of a guest;[393] and the judge gave as his reason for making the distinction that a passenger or wayfaring man may be an entire stranger in the place, and must put up and lodge at the inn to which his day’s journey may bring him, and so it is important that he should be protected by the most stringent rules of law enforcing the liability of hotel-keepers; but as a boarder does not need such protection the law does not afford it, and it is sufficient to give him a remedy when he proves the innkeeper guilty of culpable neglect. And in Kentucky, where a regular boarder at an hotel deposited gold with the proprietor, who put it in his safe, into which thieves broke and stole, the court held that the hotel-keeper was not liable as an innkeeper, but only as a depositary without reward, and as no gross negligence was shown the poor boarder failed in his attempt to recover his lost cash in that way.[394] I had better tell you, however, that in New York it has very recently been held that a boarding-house keeper is liable for the loss of a boarder’s property by theft, committed by a stranger allowed to enter the boarder’s room by a servant of the house,[395] and that it is his duty to exercise such care over a boarder’s goods as a prudent man would over his own.”

“Well, will you please tell me what is the difference between a boarding-house and an inn?” asked one of the other boarders.

“It would afford me great pleasure to answer your question at another time, but at the present I am sorry to say that duty calls me and I must go.”

Leaving my listeners to digest the law lecture I had delivered to them, I repaired to the best parlor, and there found Mrs. Lawyer and another lady in a state of white heat over the performances of a boarder who occupied the next room—one of the genus referred to by Coleridge when he said,

who was constantly carolling or trilling with a voice of the most rasping kind, or playing upon a most atrocious accordeon, to the discomfiture and annoyance of the other guests.

“Can that man not be made to keep quiet?” asked my wife.

“Doubtless, my dear, if you would go and talk to him sweetly, he would cease his songs and lay aside his wind instrument,” I gallantly replied.

“Don’t tease me,” she said. “Here we both have got splitting headaches through that horrid noise.”

“I thought from your manner you seemed a little cracked, my love; what can I do?” I queried.

“You ought to know—you are a lawyer; can’t you make him stop?”

“Well, really I don’t know. I remember that in England a man had the constant ringing of a chime of bells in a neighboring chapel stopped on account of the annoyance and discomfort it caused him.”[396]

“I am sure that the noise of bells is as heavenly music compared to the infernal discords produced by that man,” remarked the other lady, who, like Talmage’s friend, Miss Stinger, was sharp as a hornet, prided herself on saying things that cut, could not bear the sight of a pair of pants, loathed a shaving apparatus, and thought Eve would have shown a better capacity for housekeeping if she had—the first time she used her broom—swept Adam out of Paradise.

“Yes, dear madam, the noise of belles is often most delightful; and the happiest day of my life was the one on which I was engaged in ringing a sweet village belle, who shall be nameless,” I replied, knowing that the lady hated everything like gallantry, and I politely waved my hand towards Mrs. L., who exclaimed:

“You stupid, you! Tell me directly what we can do!”

“In the English case I mentioned, the man got an injunction from the Court of Chancery to restrain the noise; but in another case in North Carolina,[397] where a most pious member of a Methodist church was indicted for disturbing divine service by singing in such a way that one part of the congregation laughed, and the other part got mad—the irreligious and frivolous enjoyed it as fun, while the serious and devout were indignant—although the jury found the man guilty, the court reversed the verdict, as the brother did not desire to disturb the worship but was religiously doing his best. So here our poor neighbor is doing what he can to produce a ‘concord of sweet sounds.’ On another occasion, the judges in the same State held that the noise of a drum or fife in a procession was not a nuisance.[398] But then the wearers of the ermine in that State seem almost indifferent to sounds of any kind; for about the same time, they decided that profane swearing was not a nuisance, unless it was loud and long continued.”[399]

“What had we better do?” persisted Mrs. Lawyer. “Either he must leave, or we must bid goodbye to these premises.”

“Get the landlady to give him notice to quit; then if he won’t go peaceably, she can bundle him out neck and crop.”[400]

“She will promise to do so, and that will be the end of it,” said the acidulous lady.

“In Massachusetts, where a lodger was disturbed by the lodger in the room below singing hymns by no means of the Moody & Sankey style, and the landlord promised to get the musician out, but failed to do so, the Supreme Court held that the aggrieved boarder could not insist upon a diminution of his weekly bills on account of the disagreeable singing.[401] But, my dear, will you come and take a walk with me?”

Off we started countrywards, and —— walked. When we were returning, it was dark and late. “The night air was soft and balmy; the night odors sweet and soul-entrancing; there were no listeners save the grasshoppers and the night-moths with folded wings among the flower-beds of the cottages, and no on-lookers save the silent stars and jeweled-eyed frogs upon the path staring at us” with all their might and main. So we gossiped until we entered the city once again, and then the odors changed; listeners and lookers-on became numerous; the stars were eclipsed by flaming gas; the frogs gave place to gaping gamins.

* * * * * *

As it has to be mentioned, and there is no reason why it should not be mentioned just here, I may state (as a hint to those who keep boarders) that Judge Coleridge once remarked that if a boarding-house keeper neglected to give a boarder a dry bed or wholesome food, and in consequence thereof the latter became sick, it could not be doubted but that the landlord might be compelled to make compensation in damages to the sufferer. His lordship also went on to say, in effect, that if the White Hart Inn, High-street, Borough, had been a boarding-house, and Sam Weller had given the wooden leg of number six to thirteen, and the pair of Hessians of thirteen to number six; or the two pairs of halves of the commercial to the snuggery inside the bar, and the painted tops of the snuggery to the commercial, so that any of those worthies had been damnified, then the bustling old landlady of that establishment would have had to comfort her guests in a more substantial manner than she did when she titillated the nose of the spinster aunt.[402]

Chapter X.

MORE ABOUT BOARDING-HOUSE KEEPERS.

After a preliminary hem and haw, I began as follows: “It might be as well to say, in the first place, that a boarding-house is not in common parlance, or in legal meaning, every private house where one or more boarders are occasionally kept upon special considerations; but is a quasi-public house, where boarders are generally and habitually received as a matter of business, and which is held out to the public and known as a place of entertainment of that kind.[403] The chief distinction between a boarding-house and an inn, and the one from which all others naturally flow, is that the keeper of a boarding-house can choose his own guests, admitting some and rejecting others, as to him in his discretion or according to his whims and humors may seem best; while an innkeeper is obliged to entertain all travelers of good conduct, and possessed of means of payment, who choose to stop at his house, and those who do stay he must provide with all they have occasion for while on their way.”[404]

“That seems rather hard on the innkeeper.”

“No: he is compensated by having greater privileges than his humbler brother; and such a rule is necessary for the welfare and convenience of the traveling public, who cannot be expected, in the hurry of journeyings, to stop and hunt through a town for a night’s lodging, making a special bargain with the keeper of the house. A lodging-house keeper makes a special contract with every man that comes to him, whereas an innkeeper is bound, without any particular agreement, to provide lodging and entertainment for all who come to him, at a reasonable price.[405] In the one case the guest is entertained on an implied contract from day to day; in the other, there is an express contract for a certain time at a certain rate.”[406]

“But surely,” said Jim Crax, “oftentimes a definite agreement to board is made with an hotel-keeper.”

“Of course, I know that,” I replied. “But, then, if he does so on the arrival of his guest he loses the rights and privileges as well as the liabilities of his order; although an arrangement as to the price only, after one has become a guest, will not have that effect.[407] And it has been held that a public hotel at a watering place possessing medicinal springs, and opened only during the summer and fall for the accommodation of visitors in search of health and pleasure, is, in fact, only a boarding-house, the visitors not being guests for a day, night, or week, but lodgers or boarders for a season.”[408]

“What,” said the landlady’s daughter, who was angling for the young law student and so tried to season her generally frivolous conversation with an occasional semi-sensible remark or question, “What are the privileges of an innkeeper which a boarding-house keeper does not enjoy? The right to charge $5 per day?”

“Their right of lien. You, of course, know what that is?” I replied.

“Oh, certainly,” she answered, though she no more knew what it meant than I do the hieroglyphics on Cleopatra’s Needle.

“I don’t,” said a lady with greater honesty. “But pray, don’t attempt to define it. I never try to find out the meaning of a word since I once looked in Johnson’s dictionary and found that network was ‘anything reticulated or decussated with interstices between the intersections.’”

“I thought that the proprietor of a boarding-house also had the right of detaining the goods of their lodgers for their charges,” remarked the seediest of the company who looked as if he had had practical experience in such matters.

“Not generally; although in some States the legislatures have conferred the right upon them to the same extent as an innkeeper has at common law. This they have, for instance, in New York, New Hampshire, and Wisconsin;[409] and in Connecticut they have not only the right to retain the property until the debt is paid, but in case of non-payment they can sell it to recoup themselves after a certain time.”[410]

“Suppose,” said the student, “as is the case here, one who keeps boarders occasionally entertains travelers for a night or so—would she be considered an hotel-keeper in respect to those stray sheep?”

“No,” I replied.

“How would it be if a man agreed to go to a boarding-house and then backed out and went elsewhere?” asked my vis-a-vis at the table.

“Well, where a man of the name of Stewart agreed by word of mouth with one who took boarders to pay £100 a year for the board and lodging of himself and servant and the keep of his horse, and then failed to take up his quarters at the house, the court considered that the bargain was not a contract concerning land within the Statute of Frauds and so did not require to be in writing, and that Stewart was liable to pay for the breach of his agreement.”[411]

“What is that in front of you, sir?” was queried of me.

“Pork chops, apparently,” I replied. “Will you take one?”

“No, thanks; I am a Jew as far as pork is concerned. In fact, although not so bad as Marshal d’Albert, who was always taken ill whenever he saw a roast sucking-pig, I am like the celebrated Guianerius—pork always gives me a violent palpitation of the heart.”

“’Tis curious what antipathies some people have to particular kinds of food. I have read of a man who was always seized with a fit when he tried to swallow a piece of meat,” said a Mr. Knowall.

“Nature evidently intended him for a vegetarian.”

“I have heard of another who was made ill if he ever ate any mutton,” continued the gentleman; “and of a man who always had an attack of the gout a few hours after eating fish. In fact, the celebrated Erasmus could not smell fish without being thrown into a fever; Count d’Armstadt never failed to go off in a faint if he knowingly or unknowingly partook of any dish containing the slightest modicum of olive oil; the learned Scaliger would shudder in every limb on beholding water-cresses; and Vladisiaus, of Poland, would fly at the sight of apples.”

“I read once of a lady who, if she ventured to taste lobster salad at a dancing party, would, before she could return to the ball-room, be covered with ugly blotches and her peace of mind destroyed for that evening,” I remarked.

“The whole question of food is an interesting one,” said Mr. Knowall.

“Do you mean with regard to the sumptuary laws of other days?” queried the law student.

“Yes. You remember that in the days of the Plantagenets the Houses of Parliament solemnly resolved that no man, of what state or condition soever he might be, should have at dinner or supper, or any other time, more than two courses, and each of two sorts of victual at the utmost, be it of flesh or fish, with the common sorts of potage, without sauce or any sort of victuals. And the eating of flesh of any kind during Lent and on Fridays and Saturdays, was punished by a fine of ten shillings, or imprisonment for ten days;[412] and in the days of Queen Bess the fine was increased to £3 and the term of imprisonment to three months; but if any one had three dishes of sea-fish on his table he might have one of flesh also.”[413]

“Did Elizabeth do this from any religious motive?” asked a young divine.

“Oh, dear, no. The statute expressly says that the eating of fish is not necessary for the saving of the soul of man. In the days of bluff old King Hal, Archbishop Cranmer commanded that no clergyman should have more than three blackbirds in a pie unless he was a bishop and then he might have four, but he allowed himself and his brother of York to have six.”

“When then, pray, did the fashion of having ‘four-and-twenty blackbirds baked in a pie’ come into vogue?” asked my wife, who had a good memory for infantile rhymes.

Chapter XI.

CHARMS OF FURNISHED APARTMENTS.

To avoid all possibility of future disputations with the owner, (and especially as a contract to let lodgings is a contract concerning an interest in land within the meaning of that celebrated troublesome statute passed in the twenty-ninth year of his rascally majesty, Charles II, and entitled “an act for the prevention of frauds and perjuries,” and so must be in writing,[414]) determined to follow the good advice of Mr. Woodfall, and have our agreement reduced to black and white. My instructions to my clerk in preparing the document were, to specify the amount of rent, the time of entry, the length of notice to quit required and such other particulars as the nature of the case rendered requisite, and to have a list of the goods and chattels in the apartments affixed.

Alas, I found the truth of the old adage, that a lawyer who acts for himself has a —— well, not a Solomon—for his client. An unexpected event, however, saved me. The very evening before we were to enter into our new abode a bailiff, on behalf of the real owner, for my acquaintance had but a lease of the place, visited the house and seized a part of the furniture for rent overdue; luckily none of my personal belongings had been taken in—if there had been any of them they, too, would have been liable to distress for the rent. I had stupidly neglected to inquire whether the taxes or the rent of the house were paid up, and whether they were likely to be kept so.[415] Of course I knew that if I had at that particular period of my existence chanced to have been living in New England, or in New York State, or in some of the other States of the Union, I could not have been troubled if in that house, as the power of distress exists in those places no longer;[416] but we were in a State in which it is still retained, or at least was then.

When I told my wife of the narrow escape we had had she asked me if I had ever made inquiries as to whether the landlords of the hotels at which we stayed were in arrear for rent.

“No,” I replied; “the rule is different in respect to hotels.”

“Why?”

“For the benefit of trade; otherwise business could not be carried on at all.”

“But what would we have had there except my cat and bird, our clothes, and your books?” urged Mrs. L.

“Nothing more would have been wanted.”

“Could they have taken our clothes? I thought all such things were exempt.”

“Generally speaking, they are from seizure for debt; but not from distress for rent, unless they are in actual use at the time. In 1796 Mr. Baynes, who had furnished lodgings at half a guinea a week, was two months in arrear, and a bailiff appeared upon the scene and took his wearing apparel and that of Mrs. B., although part of it was actually in the wash-tub at the time; and Lord Kenyon said it was all right.[417] The same judge decided in another case that a landlord could legally take the clothes belonging to a man’s wife and children, while they—the ‘clothes screens,’ as Carlyle calls them—not the clothes—were in bed, although the bipeds intended to put them on in the morning, and had been daily in the habit of wearing them, on the ground that they were not in actual use.[418] But Kenyon, my dear, sometimes said absurd things. For instance, once, when indignant at the delay of an attorney, he exclaimed, wrathfully, ‘This is the last hair in the tail of procrastination.’”

“The law seems very hard. Why, that poor woman would have to stay in bed. But talking of tails, could they have taken my cat—my beautiful pussy?” said Mrs. Lawyer, looking over where

“Well—ah—in Coke upon Littleton it is said, no; but the reason given is that cats are things in which no man can have an absolute and valuable property; and that reason might not be applicable to the case of a costly Angora like yours, and you know, cessante ratione cessat et ipsa lex; but your bird might have been taken.”[419]

“It seems strange that the landlord can take the property of other people to pay his tenant’s debts.”

“It does; and in many parts of this country only the goods of the debtor can be taken,[420] and the judges are generally inclined to deliver the lodger from the claws of the landlord; and so it has been held that while the goods of an assignee of the tenant are liable, those of a mere under-tenant are not;[421] and in England, of late years, an act has been passed for the protection of the lodger’s goods from the claims of the landlord for rent due him by his immediate tenant.”[422]

“But if our things had been taken to pay the rent, could we not have made the other boarders contribute their share?”

“No, I am afraid not,”[423] I answered.

* * * * * *

Our intended rooms being now somewhat denuded of their necessary furnishings we arranged with our landlord-about-to-be to send in all necessary articles within a reasonable time. Unfortunately, however, this new arrangement was not embodied in our written agreement; so I found out—when too late—that our landlord (a man of the eel kind) was not bound to put in the furniture. If it had been in writing, it would then have formed an inseparable part of the contract, and the man could not have obtained his rent until he had done his duty.[424]

We had scarcely got settled in our new quarters before we discovered that our rose possessed a thorn or two. The morning after our arrival, we were honored with the visit of a choleric gent, who informed us that he occupied the rooms on the flat below and that our water pipes had leaked through and damaged irreparably some of his property. I am thankful, however, to say that I was able to point out to him that the defects in the pipe could not have been detected without examination; that as we did not know of them, and had not been guilty of any negligence, we were not liable for the damage which he had unfortunately sustained, there being no obligation upon us to keep—at our peril—the water in the pipe.[425]

We next had trouble about a stovepipe which had to pass through another person’s room. When we began to put it up our neighbor threatened to take it down and stop up the hole; but knowing that as there had been a pipe through his room before the surly fellow moved in he only had the room subject to the easement of the stovepipe and hole,[426] I remained firm and steadfast, and finally won a way for the obnoxious, black, cylindrical smoke-conductor, and we hoped to hear the kettle sing merrily, and the pots bubble, and spirt, and boil in peace, if not in quietude.

But our triumph was not for long. Barely was the stove in full blast when the boiler attached exploded with a terrific uproar. Considerable damage was done; my wife was clamorous that I should at once interview the landlord, especially as we thought that the accident could not have happened had there been a safety-valve to the boiler; but I said that it would be useless to talk about it unless we could prove that he knew of the defect, or had reason to suspect it, or that damage was to be apprehended from the use of the boiler for the purpose for which it was intended;[427] although on one occasion the courts held a landlord liable for injuries arising from the explosion of gas, caused by the pipes in the tenant’s room not having been properly secured.[428]

In the afternoon it began to rain in the style commonly called “cats and dogs,” or “pitchforks,” and soon we heard pit—pit—pit, patter—patter—patter, spit—spit—spit, spatter—spatter—spatter, sounding nearer than the dripping outside would seem to warrant, and on investigation we found that the rain was coming through the roof and dropping down in ugly splashes upon one of our most handsome and costly volumes.

“Can we make the landlord pay for the damage done by his old leaky roof?” asked my wife, as with her best cambric handkerchief she tried to swab up the wet.

“I fear me not. I remember Baron Martin saying that one who takes a floor in a house must be held to take the premises as they are, and cannot complain that the house was not constructed differently. This storm may have blown off some shingles, and then, even if our landlord is bound to use reasonable care in keeping the roof secure, he cannot be held responsible for what no reasonable care and vigilance could have provided against. He cannot certainly be considered guilty of negligence if he has caused the roof to be examined periodically, and if it was all secure the last time it was looked at.[429] Still, in New York State it was decided that where a landlord, who himself occupied an upper flat, allowed liquids to leak through into his tenants’ rooms, he was liable.”[430]

“I should think, indeed, that a man should keep his house in repair, so that his tenants’ goods are not ruined,” indignantly said Mrs. Lawyer.

“You may say that, but the law says quite the reverse. It is perfectly clear that a landlord is not bound to do any repairs, however necessary they may be, except such as he personally agrees to do. The law will not imply any contract of that sort on his part. That was decided in a case where large gaps opened in the main walls, and it took several hours of hard pumping daily to keep the water out of the basement.[431]

“In New Hampshire, I admit, it has been held that where a landlord negligently constructs his building, or negligently allows it to continue out of repair, he is liable for injuries to his tenants;[432] and in New York the rule is said to be that when buildings are in good repair when leased and afterward become ruinous and dangerous, the owner is not responsible unless he has expressly agreed to repair.”[433]

“Surely, then, one has not to pay rent when a house is in such a wretched state? I suppose we are not bound to stay here.”

“Yes, to both your queries. The only cases in which a tenant has been permitted to withdraw from his tenancy and refuse payment of rent are where there has been some error or fraudulent misdescription of the premises, or where they have been found to be uninhabitable in consequence of the wrongful act or default of the landlord himself;[434] and it is not perfectly clear that he can do so even then.[435] But I must go out for the present, my dear. Fare thee well.”

In the hall down stairs I met Mr. Screwhard, our landlord, a gentleman who, from his personal appearance, would have accumulated a large fortune as an undertaker; for from his countenance you could no more have coaxed a smile than you could have out of a poker. As I was bidding him a hurried “Good morning,” he placed his body, so long, so lean, and so straight that you might have taken it for a telegraph pole in consumption, before me, and said, in tones which would have well become the ghost in Hamlet—

“You must be in by nine o’clock, sir; we lock the front door then.”

“Gammon!” said I; “you will have to unlock it, then, to let me in; for when you rented me the rooms you impliedly granted all that was necessary for their free use and full enjoyment, such as the use of the hall and stairs whenever required, and not only when you choose.”[436]

“I will yield to your wishes for this night only,” said Screwhard, in a voice as solemn as if he were about to be cremated; “but mind, rap with your knuckles on the door; in time your wife will hear and can let you in, for I must be allowed to have unbroken slumbers; my health demands that most imperatively.”

“Stuff and nonsense!” I replied; “I have a right to use the bell and the knocker, as nothing was said to the contrary before;[437] and I shall use them.”

And impatient with the old fellow I passed on, saying to myself: “The man must be a fool. An action will lie against him if he attempts to interfere with our use of the necessary adjuncts of his furnished apartments. To be sure if we were bad tenants, he might, in mitigation of damages, show that he acted so to make us leave.[438] But we have not been long enough for that.”

Apollo stayed not his fiery steeds in their downward career towards the happy isles of the west that day, and Phœbus’ sickly-looking sister held sway in high heaven when I again reached the door of my new domicile. With me was Tom Jones, who was anxious to see the rooms. Mrs. Lawyer received us in the parlor with a face full of disgust, and after the interchange of a word or two with Tom, calling me aside, made the horrid announcement that our bedrooms were fully occupied by animals of a small size, broad for their length, darkish in color, scented, anthropophagous, and designated by the same letters as very dark drawing pencils.

I disclosed the fact to T. J., who, being somewhat of a naturalist, might, I thought, be able to prescribe some cure for this new found evil. He at once exclaimed:

“I tell you what, old fellow, some scientific folks say that these creatures always retire from public life to their own quarters about midnight. Test the point. You tumble into bed at once, and I will endeavor to entertain Mrs. Lawyer until twelve, and will call in the morning to hear the result of the experiment.”

“You’re very kind, I am sure. But I am always willing to share things equally with my wife; besides, when two are in bed the creepers lose time in deciding which to bite, so one can get occasional naps. To-morrow we will quit,” I replied.

“But can you give up your lodgings in that summary manner?”

“Long since it was decided that where a man rents ready furnished houses or lodgings and they are infested by bugs, the tenant may leave without paying rent. Baron Parke, in giving judgment, said that the authorities appeared fully to warrant the position that if the demised premises are encumbered with a nuisance of so serious a nature that no person can reasonably be expected to live in them, the tenant is at liberty to throw them up. And he said that this was so because of the implied condition that the landlord undertakes to rent the place in an habitable state. Lord Abinger, in the same case, went even further, and gave it as his opinion that no authorities were wanted to establish the point, and that the case was one which common sense alone enabled them to decide. A man, he remarked, who lets a ready furnished house, surely does so under an implied condition, or obligation, that the house is in a fit state to be inhabited. His lordship had no doubt whatever on the subject, and thought that tenants under such circumstances were fully justified in leaving.”[439]

“But have not other equally learned judges had very grave doubts upon the subject?” queried Jones.

“Well, I must confess that later cases have somewhat shaken the authority of the one I have been referring to, and it has been held that there is no implied warranty in a lease of a house, or of land, that it is or shall be reasonably fit for habitation, occupation, or cultivation, and that there is no contract, still less any condition, implied by law on the demise of real property only that it is fit for the purpose for which it is let.”[440]

“Does not that put an extinguisher on the authority you cited?” said Jones.

“No; in some of these latter decisions the case of a ready furnished house is expressly distinguished upon the ground that the letting of such a house is a contract of a mixed nature, being in fact a bargain for a house and furniture, which, of necessity, must be such as are fit for the purpose for which they are to be used. Abinger was particularly strong on the point. He said that ‘if a party contract for the lease of a house ready furnished, it is to be furnished in a proper manner, and so as to be fit for immediate occupation. Suppose,’ said he, ‘it turn out that there is not a bed in the house; surely the party is not bound to occupy it or continue in it. So, also, in the case of a house infected with vermin; if bugs be found in the bed, even after entering into possession, the lodger or occupier is not bound to stay in the house. Suppose again,’ he continued, ‘the tenant discover that there are not sufficient chairs in the house, or that they are not of a sort fit for use: he may give up possession.’[441] And so late as April of the year of grace 1877, Lord C. B. Kelly said that he was of the opinion, both on authority and on general principles of law, that there is an implied condition that a furnished house shall be in a good and tenantable state and reasonably fit for human occupation from the very day on which the tenancy is dated to begin, and that where such a house is in such a condition that there is either great discomfort or danger to health in entering and dwelling in it, then the intending tenant is entitled to repudiate the contract altogether.”[442]

“Well, that is strong, I am sure.”

“Abinger held that the letting of the goods and chattels, as well as the house, implies that the party who lets it so furnished is under an obligation to supply the other contracting party with whatever goods and chattels may be fit for the use and occupation of such a house according to its particular description and suitable in every respect. And Judge Shaw, of Massachusetts, says that in the case of furnished rooms in a lodging house, let for a particular season, a warranty may be implied that they are suitably fitted for such use.”[443]

“I should think,” said Jones, “that a would be tenant ought to go and inspect the premises for himself.”

“If he has an opportunity of doing so it might, perhaps, make a difference, but if he takes it upon the faith of its being properly furnished, common sense and common justice concur in the conclusion that the owner is bound to let it in an habitable state. So saith the Lord Chief Baron.”[444]

“I believe that it has been held in this country that the existence of a noxious smell in the house did not authorize the tenant’s leaving.”[445]

“Indeed. My lady, the Dowager Countess of Winchelsea, agreed to rent a furnished house in Wilton Crescent, London, for three months of the season of 1875 for the sum of 450 guineas. When her ladyship arrived with her servants and personal luggage, she perceived an unpleasant smell in the house, and declining to occupy it, had her horses taken out of the stable. On investigation, it was found that the drainage was in a very bad state, rendering the house quite unfit for occupation. In three weeks’ time, however, matters were put right, but her ladyship refused to go back or to pay rent. A suit was brought, in which the whole court unanimously held that the state of the drains entitled the Countess to rescind the bargain and to refuse to pay rent.[446] Abinger thought that if a tenant, on entering his lodgings, found out that the previous occupier had left because some one had recently died in them of the plague or scarlet fever, he would not be compelled to remain.[447] And in Massachusetts it was decided that a tenant who caught small-pox through no fault of his own, but because the owner wilfully neglected to inform him that the house was infected with that disease, might recover damages from the landlord.”[448]

Just then a slight movement on the part of Jones made the chair on which he was perched creak, crack, stretch out its legs, and let him down. As he was hastily apologizing for the damage, I remarked:

“Don’t trouble yourself, the occupier of furnished apartments is not responsible for deterioration by ordinary wear or tear in the reasonable use of the goods of the landlord.”[449]

“I’ll go now, at all events, as I am up,” said our friend, as he seized his hat and made his adieux.

Quære, was that a white handkerchief protruding slightly from his pistol pocket? Indispensables are tighter now-a-days than they used to be.

Chapter XII.

NOTICE TO QUIT, AND TURNING OUT.

Ah! then throughout our house there was hurrying to and fro, and gathering tears, and tremblings of distress, and cheeks all pale, which, but ten minutes past, pressed the soft pillows with their loveliness; and there were sudden snatchings of such as by chance lay within reach, and leaving things which ne’er might be regained; and there was rushing in hot haste—the men, the chattering women, and the pattering child, went pouring forward with impetuous speed, and swiftly showed in the back yard in robes de nuit.

I jumped into my pantaloons; fortunately, they were not like those of Monseigneur d’Artois, nor was I as particular as his highness; four tall lackeys had to hold him up in the air every morning, that he might fall into his breeches without vestige of wrinkle, and from them the same four, in the same way but with more effort, had to deliver him at night. We found shelter in the hospitable mansion of old Mrs. Jones. At the expense of our friends, we thatched ourselves anew with the “dead fleeces of sheep, the bark of vegetables, the entrails of worms, the hides of oxen or seals, the felt of furred beasts, and walked down stairs moving rag screens, over-heaped with shreds and tatters raked from the charnel-house of nature” to partake of the morning meal.

At breakfast, Mrs. Lawyer remarked, in anything but lugubrious tones:

“Well, Mr. Jones, we have got rid of those rooms without much trouble.”

Tom shook his head; so my wife asked:

“Why do you do that?”

“Because I am not quite sure that you are yet quit of my friend, Mr. Screwhard, your landlord,” was the reply.

“What do you mean?” queried my wife.

“Ask your respected husband; he knows more about such matters than I do.”

In reply to my wife’s questioning glance, I said: “I am afraid it is rather too soon to rejoice over the matter. We must pay rent until we can get rid of our liability by a regular notice to quit.”

“But we can’t occupy the place.”

“That makes no difference.”[450]

“Then you had no provision in your lease exempting you in case of fire,” remarked Jones.

“Unfortunately, not.”

“But why should we pay when we cannot use the place?” asked my wife, growing warm.

“The rule is, my dear, that when the law imposes a duty upon one and he is prevented performing it without any fault on his part, and he has no one to whom he may look for satisfaction, the courts will excuse the non-performance; but when a man voluntarily takes a duty or charge upon himself he must perform his contract, come what may, because he might have provided against all accidents in his agreement.”

“And, you stupid! you did not have the lease properly drawn!”

“Exactly so, my female Solomon,” I replied, indignantly.

“Well, I must say,” said Mrs. L., “that I fear I am bound for life to