And then the housekeeper turned them into a grand room , all covered up in sheets of brown paper , and bade them begin , in a lofty and tremendous voice ; and so after a whimper or two , and a kick from his master , into the grate Tom went , and up the chimney , while a housemaid stayed in the room to watch the furniture ; to whom Mr. Grimes paid many playful and chivalrous compliments , but met with very slight encouragement in return . How many chimneys Tom swept I can not say ; but he swept so many that he got quite tired , and puzzled too , for they were not like the town flues to which he was accustomed , but such as you would find -- if you would only get up them and look , which perhaps you would not like to do -- in old country-houses , large and crooked chimneys , which had been altered again and again , till they ran one into another , anastomosing -LRB- as Professor Owen would say -RRB- considerably . So Tom fairly lost his way in them ; not that he cared much for that , though he was in pitchy darkness , for he was as much at home in a chimney as a mole is underground ; but at last , coming down as he thought the right chimney , he came down the wrong one , and found himself standing on the hearthrug in a room the like of which he had never seen before . Tom had never seen the like . He had never been in gentlefolks ' rooms but when the carpets were all up , and the curtains down , and the furniture huddled together under a cloth , and the pictures covered with aprons and dusters ; and he had often enough wondered what the rooms were like when they were all ready for the quality to sit in . And now he saw , and he thought the sight very pretty . The room was all dressed in white , -- white window-curtains , white bed-curtains , white furniture , and white walls , with just a few lines of pink here and there . The carpet was all over gay little flowers ; and the walls were hung with pictures in gilt frames , which amused Tom very much . There were pictures of ladies and gentlemen , and pictures of horses and dogs . The horses he liked ; but the dogs he did not care for much , for there were no bull-dogs among them , not even a terrier . But the two pictures which took his fancy most were , one a man in long garments , with little children and their mothers round him , who was laying his hand upon the children 's heads . That was a very pretty picture , Tom thought , to hang in a lady 's room . For he could see that it was a lady 's room by the dresses which lay about . The other picture was that of a man nailed to a cross , which surprised Tom much . He fancied that he had seen something like it in a shop-window . But why was it there ? `` Poor man , '' thought Tom , `` and he looks so kind and quiet . But why should the lady have such a sad picture as that in her room ? Perhaps it was some kinsman of hers , who had been murdered by the savages in foreign parts , and she kept it there for a remembrance . '' And Tom felt sad , and awed , and turned to look at something else .
The next thing he saw , and that too puzzled him , was a washing - stand , with ewers and basins , and soap and brushes , and towels , and a large bath full XXXXX clean water -- what a heap of things all for washing !
if into like of over that till to under upon