human
A friend advised me, if ever I took a house in a terrace a little way out of town, to be very careful that it was the centre one, at least if I had any regard for my reputation. For I must be well aware that a story never loses by telling; and consequently, if I lived in the middle of a row of houses it was very clear that the tales which might be circulated to my prejudice would only have half the distance to travel on either side of me, and therefore could only be half as bad by the time they got down to the bottom of the terrace as the tales that might be circulated by the wretched individuals who had the misfortune to live at the two ends of it, so that I should be certain to have twice as good a character in the neighbourhood as they had. For instance, I was informed of a lamentable case that actually occurred a short time since. The servant of No. 1 told the servant of No. 2 that her master expected his old friends, the Bayleys, to pay him a visit shortly; and No. 2 told No. 3 that No. 1 expected to have the Bayleys in the house every day; and No. 3 told No. 4 that it was all up with No. 1, for they couldn't keep the bailiffs out; whereupon No. 4 told No. 5 that the officers were after No. 1, and that it was as much as he could do to prevent himself being taken in execution, and that it was nearly killing his poor dear wife; and so it went on increasing and increasing until it got to No. 32, who confidently assured the last, No. 33, that the Bow-street officers had taken up the gentleman who lived at No. 1 for killing his poor dear wife with arsenic, and that it was confidently hoped and expected that he would be executed.