In one of these streets, the cleanest of them all, and on the shady
side of the way--for good housewives know that sunlight damages their
cherished furniture, and so choose the shade rather than its intrusive
glare--there stood the house with which we have to deal. It was a modest
building, not very straight, not large, not tall; not bold-faced, with
great staring windows, but a shy, blinking house, with a conical roof
going up into a peak over its garret window of four small panes of
glass, like a cocked hat on the head of an elderly gentleman with one
eye. It was not built of brick or lofty stone, but of wood and plaster;
it was not planned with a dull and wearisome regard to regularity,
for no one window matched the other, or seemed to have the slightest
reference to anything besides itself.
The shop--for it had a shop--was, with reference to the first floor,
where shops usually are; and there all resemblance between it and any
other shop stopped short and ceased. People who went in and out didn't
go up a flight of steps to it, or walk easily in upon a level with the
street, but dived down three steep stairs, as into a cellar. Its floor
was paved with stone and brick, as that of any other cellar might be;
and in lieu of window framed and glazed it had a great black wooden flap
or shutter, nearly breast high from the ground, which turned back in
the day-time, admitting as much cold air as light, and very often more.
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