The Boarding House.doc

The Boarding House.doc The Boarding House In this passage the landlady of a boarding house relates the history of a particular room to a prospective boarder. Ostensibly a study of tenants---the landlady's describing a colorful parade of lodgers, including a dishonest tailor, a naive young woman, a counterfeiter, and a writer---the actual focus is on the landlady herself, who is indirectly revealed as garrulous, gullible, and easily exploited. The mere fact that the speaker, himself a writer, is easily able to secure lodging despite the landlady's opinion of writing as a "noisy trade," confirms these foibles. Furthermore, the description of the lodgers provides a marvelous dose of local English color, artfully enhanced by the subtle wit of the author. From the opening sentence of the paragraph, in which the speaker is seen negotiating the terms of his new lodging with its proprietress, the passage's understated humor is evident. The speaker, whose primary interest in the new lodgings seems to be financial, deftly avoids the landlady's inquiry as to whether he is an author (a profession she peculiarly deems "noisy") by "very readily promis[ing] to give no disturbance to her family" (lines 5-6). As the speaker then indicates that he "soon dispatched a bargain on the usual terms" (line 7), it may be presumed that he achieved his initial goal of "cheapen[ing his] lodgings" (line 1). Motivated by curiosity, the speaker finds himself within a week probing the landlady about his "predecessors" (line 10). The landlady, a loquacious woman whose imagination, the speaker observes, was "filled chiefly with her own affairs" (line 11), is only to happy to tell him. As the speaker confesses that he "had heated [his] head with expectations of adventures and discoveries" (lines 15-16), he is initially disappointed to discover that the first occupant was a mere tailor, whose impression was such that the sole thing remembered about him was that he'd regularly complained about a "want of light" (line 20). The tailor, who had paid for one week but stayed for four, was apparently forced to abandon the lodging after he'd "pawned a piece of cloth which he was trusted to cut out" (lines 21-22), infuriating a customer. The second tenant was a "young woman newly arrived from the country, who lived [in the room] for five weeks with great regularity" (lines 25-27). The landlady indicates that this young lady had such frequent visits from a cousin in Cheapside that she "brought the reputation of the house into danger" (lines 30-31), and made people consider the lodging a house of ill repute. Though the evidence is ambiguous, the phrase "with great regularity" (line 27) might suggest that the woman was a prostitute and the "cousin from Cheapside" the cover she used for her nocturnal callers. True or not, the young woman was summarily dismissed by the landlady "with good advice" (line 32), presumably to limit her social traffic. However, when the room subsequently remained empty for two entire weeks, the landlady began to express remorse and "to think that she had judged [the young woman] hardly" (lines 34-35). This remorse quickly dissipated when "an elderly man of grave aspect" (line 36) inspected the room and agreed to take it on the first terms offered. Though his willingness to strike such a quick bargain seemed suspect, the man appeared innocent enough, living in "close retirement" (lines 38-39) and seldom leaving his room until evening. Moreover, he was prompt with his rent and generous towards the proprietress, treating her to supper at least once per week. His one idiosyncrasy, however, was his constant dearth of small change. As the speaker notes, "It was remarkable, that whatever he purchased, he never had small money in his pocket" (lines 40-42). This mystery was solved when "the house was alarm'd at midnight by the constable, who demanded to search the garrets" (lines 47-48). There the constable and landlady discovered the "tools of a coiner," (line 51), or counterfeiter, though the man himself had escaped by climbing onto a neighboring rooftop. Amusingly, the landlady actually cheered the coiner's escape, declaring him "a very honest man" (line 54) and wondering "why any body should be hanged for making money when such numbers are in want of it. .. " (lines 55-56). The landlady's comment provides insight into her character, revealing that, as long as she is paid, she considers a person honest. It also helps establish her ingenuousness and simplicity, factors which contribute more than a little to her financial exploitation and her questionable assessment of prospective lodgers. Following the incident with the coiner, the loft remained vacant for seven weeks despite a parade of "innumerable passengers" (line 59) who "obliged her to climb with them every hour up five stories, and then disliked the prospect, hated the noise of a pub lick street, thought the stairs narrow, objected to a low ceiling ... " (lines 60-63) or found a plethora of other things objectionable. Finally, "a short meager man, in a tarnish'd waistcoat" (lines 70-71) agreed to take the lodging after negotiating for "two long shelves and a larger table" (lines 72-73). The landlady reveals that the man "lived very inoffensively, except that he frequently disturbed the inhabitants of the next floor by unseasonable noises" (lines 75-77). Although he slept well into the day, "from evening to midnight he sometimes talked aloud with great vehemence, sometimes stamped as in a rage, sometimes threw down his poker, then clattered his chairs, then sat down in deep thought, and again burst into loud vociferations" (lines 78-83), all eighteenth-century manifestations of what we now commonly call "writer's block." It was only when the landlady "heard a printer's boy enquire for the author" (lines 85-86), however, that she understood the true reason for his volatility. 46. The passage implies that the speaker's move to his new lodgings was motivated by a(n) (A) lack of financial success as an author. The speaker is said to have "cheapened [his] lodgings" (line 1), a phrase that implies a need to cut back expenses. When the landlady said she "hoped [he] was not an author" (lines 2-3), the speaker "very readily promised to give no disturbance to her family" (lines 5-6). He just as quickly dispatched "a bargain" (line 7) on the room being let. The combination of the speaker's trade and his limited means makes this implication plausible. 47. All of the following may be inferred from the speaker's choice of the word "cheapened" (line 1) EXCEPT (E) his lack of self-esteem. That the speaker needed to cheapen his lodgings certainly suggests that his means are somewhat limited (A) and that his move was precipitated by economic difficulty (B). The word "cheapened" also reveals the speaker's willingness to accept something less fashionable (C), in this case the fifth floor garret of a boarding house, a room rejected in paragraph six by "innumerable passengers" (line 59) and previously occupied by morally questionable boarders. Furthermore, it reinforces the speaker's ability to negotiate shrewdly (D), a fact supported by the "bargain" (line 7) he claims to have struck with the landlady. Nowhere, however, does the speaker display any lack of self-esteem (E). 48. The curious parade of tenants that precedes the speaker suggests that the landlady is (B) totally naive. The landlady rents the flat to a tailor who pays one week's rent but stays four, then absconds without paying the balance. She then rents the garret to a young girl who, if not a prostitute, certainly behaves like one, before letting it to a counterfeiter who must flee the constabulary on her rooftop. Even the author's profession remains unknown to her despite his request for bookshelves and a larger table. This suggests a rather thorough naivete. 49. The speaker implies in lines 13-16 that he had expected the previous occupants of his flat to have been (B) persons of notoriety. This is derived directly from lines 15-16, which state that he "had heated [his] head with expectations of adventures and discoveries" in regard to his predecessors in the garret. The speaker further confesses that he was "mortified" (line 17) when he learned that the first occupant had been a mere tailor. 50. The speaker most likely labels the tailor's departure "precipitate" (line 23) because of his (B) haste in departing. The word "precipitate" means "hasty" or "rash." The tailor makes such a retreat because he has "pawned a piece of cloth which he was trusted to cut out" (lines 21-22). Had he remained, he would have faced the wrath of an irate customer. Thus, he is forced to flee the neighborhood. 51. The speaker implies that the young woman who succeeded the tailor was asked to depart because she (D) inadvertently made the house seem like a brothel. As has been explicated earlier, tbe frequent visits of the lady's 'cousin from Cheapside' "brought the reputation of the house into danger" (lines 30-31). This implies that people began to think it was a bawdy house, or a house of prostitution. The word "hardly" is very close to "harshly." When the landlady is unable to let the room for a fortnight, she begins to think that she may have been too severe in dismissing the young lady so hastily. Several bits of evidence may be marshaled to defend this: the man's constant lack of "small change;' (he is ostensibly using it as a model for the coins he is forging); the arrival of the constable and subsequent flight of the tenant; and, most significantly, the "tools of a coiner" (line ?50) which are discovered in the garret. 54. All of the following can be seen as contributing to the coiner's disarmingly model tenancy EXCEPT (E) his subtle evasion of the constable. The first sign that something is amiss is when the elderly man "read the bill, and bargained for the room, at the first price that was asked" (lines 37-38). So eager is the man to secure the lodging that he is willing to eschew negotiation and pay the landlady's price (A). His subsequent punctual payment of rent (B) and his rewarding of the landlady's civility with a supper (C) are additional means of ingratiating himself to the landlady so that she will not pry into his business. His success in doing so is manifested by her as?surances to the constable that he must have the wrong door, her happiness at the coiner's escape, and her easy rationalization of his fiscal dishonesty (D). The coiner's actual flight (E), however, does not contribute to his model tenancy but rather provides a sure sign of his culpability.