Of all the houses which Martin Kendrick owned, he used the oldest and meanest for his own habitation. It was an old tumble-down building, on a narrow street, which had already lived out more tha...

 Of all the houses which Martin Kendrick owned, he used the oldest and meanest for his own habitation. It was an old tumble-down building, on a narrow street, which had already lived out more than its appointed term of service, and was no longer fit to “cumber the ground.” But the owner still clung to it, the more, perhaps, because, as it stood there in its desolation, unsightly and weather-beaten, it was no unfit emblem of himself.