The House of All Sorts

Bangs and Snores

A YOUNG lawyer and his mother lived in Lower West. They were big, heavy-footed people. Every night between twelve and two the lawyer son came home to the flat. First he slammed the gate, then took the steps at a noisy run, opened and shut the heavy front door with such a bang that the noise reverberated through the whole still house. Every soul in it was startled from his sleep. People complained. I went to the young man's mother and asked that she beg the young man to come in quietly. She replied, "My son is my son! We pay rent! Good-day."

He kept on banging the house awake at two A.M.

The next morning I went down and had words with the woman regarding her selfish, noisy son as against my dog's snore.

The dog slept on the storey above in a basket, his nose snuggled in a heavy fur rug. I cannot think that the noise could have been very disturbing to anyone on the floor below.

One morning at three A.M. my telephone rang furiously. In alarm I jumped from my bed and ran to it. A great yawn was on the other end of the wire. When the yawn was spent, the voice of the lawyer's mother drawled "My son informs me your housedog is snoring; kindly wake the dog, it disturbs my son."

Petty unreasonableness nagged calm more than all the hard work of the house. I wanted to loose the Bobtails, follow them--run, and run, and run into forever--beyond sound of every tenant in the world--tenants tore me to Shreds.