From his apartment Sloan could look in on neighbouring tenements. Whether directly observed or imaginatively recreated, several etchings suggest this intimate access. In a 1911 diary entry Sloan describes seeing a ‘careless couple … lying on their bed naked and playing with a kitten. She (the woman) would wiggle her toes and the cat would jump at them. … Finally they put out the light’. As in this etching Sloan’s apparent voyeurism is curtailed by extinguishing a lamp.