desperately hungry. He took me upstairs to an attic room at the back of the house. It was small, but well lighted and clean, also it smelt of lavender. It contained a deal wardrobe with a full length mirror, a truckle bed, a dressing table and a wash stand. There was also a carpet on the floor. I felt pleased, but I was famished.

"Here you hare!" growled Butts.

I put down my make-up box, and faced him.

"I should like to be friends with you, Mr. Butts," I said. "I dare say we shall be cast a good deal in each other's company. What do you say?" I offered him my hand.

He grinned and took it. My apparent ingenuousness had melted him at once. He was not a bad hearted fellow, it seemed.

"All right," he said. "What's yer name?"

"Brown."

"What did yer think of 'im," he jerked his thumb over his shoulder.

"A book-worm, isn't he—but what do you say if we discuss him over a glass of beer and some bread and cheese?"

"Good!" said Butts, and with an alacrity that delighted me, he led the way by the servants' staircase to the pantry on the ground floor. For beer, however, he gave me port wine, and for bread and cheese a cold partridge.

"You seem to live well here," I commented with my mouth full.

"So so!" answered Butts with a sigh. "Tucker's all right—but it's so cursed lonely. Master never goes out, except to meals, and it's very seldom he hever has any company here, honly about once a month."

"Oh! a bit of a hermit, eh?"

"A bloomin' misanthrope—that's what I call him! He 'ates noise like poison. Hif I was to drop a plate 'e'd ring to know what the devil I meant by it?"

"Married?"

"No. He 'ates women wors'n noise, I believe."

"How does he pass his time?"

"Reads all day—half the night too."

"What does he want with a valet, then?"

"You'll soon find out," said Butts with a snort of contempt.

"Please tell me."

Butts wagged his head. "Bar shavin' him you won't 'ave much to do, 'cept give him his medicines at the proper hours. He's a sick man is Sir William Dagmar! The last valet 'e had here, Joe Bates, was a real smart un he was. He'd done for Lord X—— and Mr. Francis, and a lot more tip-toppers. He was just celebrated for fixing hevenin' dress ties; and Sir William always wears ready made ones to save trouble. Bates got the miserables in a week, an' hup an' cleared out before the fortnight was up."

"What is the matter with Sir William?"

"Consumption! He's got it bad!"

"Oh! is he rich?"

"Rich as Croesus."

"Any relatives?"

"A cousin he 'ates wors'n noise and wors'n women. A young chap name o' Sefton Dagmar. He's heir to the title, but I'm not thinkin' he'll get much o' the splosh. Sir William's got it all in Government bonds and he can leave it as he likes."

"What is this Sefton Dagmar like?"

"Not a bad sort. He's always haffable enough to me. He lives at Newhaven, but he calls here once in a while to see how Sir William is. But he hardly ever sees him. Hi! there's master's bell—I'll be back in a minute."

As soon as Butts had disappeared I gave my appetite free rein and a very hearty meal I made. He was absent a quarter of an hour, and on his return he wore a look of annoyance. "Nuisance!" he began. "He's halways worriting about this time. He's goin' to give a dinner party to-morrow night. He gives one every month. But he wants you! Hurry up, he 'ates to be kep waitin'."

I was up the stairs in a twinkle, and again standing before Sir William. He looked bored to death.

"Some gentlemen will dine with me to-morrow night, Brown," he drawled. "Six in all. Their names are on this paper, and their table places marked. I wish you to serve—Butts is a clumsy waiter."

I received the paper with a deferential bow. "Very good, sir!" I murmured.

"You will also see that card tables are arranged in the smoking room. Butts will order the dinner, he knows my ways. But you will take charge of the arrangements. You seem a capable young fellow."

"Thank you, sir!"

"And Brown," he frowned heavily.

"Yes, sir."

"Don't fill my glass too often. I am an invalid, you know, and wine does not agree with me. That is all. I shall not want you again until seven o'clock this evening, when you may dress me for dinner!"

Butts and I studied the paper that Sir William had given me, with the greatest attention. I soon gathered that the six gentlemen who were to dine with my master were not members of the smart set of society such as Butts called "tip-toppers," but men of intellectual attainment, and leaders of thought, if not of fashion. Butts knew them all. "They belong to Sir William's club, the 'Athenian,'" he remarked. "This here Sir Charles Venner who's to take the seat of honour is a cove what cuts up dead dogs and such like while they are alive."

"A vivisectionist?" I asked smiling.

"Don't know what you call 'em," responded Butts. "But he's doctor, and so is Mr. Fulton, who is to sit opposite on master's left. The next chap on the right—Luke Humphreys—is a hauthor, on political economy. Mr. Husband is the chap who wrote that article in the National Review on the weakness of the Navy, which kicked up such a blessed fuss a while since. You must have heard of him?"

"Oh, yes."

"Well, George Cavanagh is an artist and a R.A. Master has one of his pictures in the dining room—you'll see it presently: a naked woman with a chap—'Love and Death' it's called."

I had much ado not to laugh outright. "I've seen prints of it," I muttered. "Who is the last, Mr. Nevil Pardoe, Butts?"

"He's a playwright," answered Butts with a sigh. "They're playin' one of his pieces now at the Kensington Theatre. I went there the other night and got my pocket picked for my trouble." He kicked over a chair as he spoke, as if carried away by temper in remembering his misfortune. The bell rang on instant. "Oh, Lor!" groaned Butts. "I'm in for it again, that man has the ears of a mole!"

He came back a few minutes later looking very sour. "Called me a clod hopper!" he growled in a low voice. "He's got a reptile tongue. But come upstairs, Brown, and I'll show you his bedroom—an' where he keeps his clothes an' things!"

It was an immense apartment, magnificently furnished. But it was very untidy and medicine bottles, some full, some empty, crowded the mantelpiece and dressing tables. The place smelt like a druggist's store. "I'll clear that rubbish away first thing," I declared. But the footman seized my arm as I caught up the first bottle. "He'd go ravin' stark starin' mad if one of them was shifted," he cried. "Don't you touch 'em, lad."

I shrugged my shoulders, and watched Butts ransack our master's wardrobe, he explaining to me the while certain preferences in matters of taste and dress which Sir William had always manifested. It appeared that he detested colours. All his suits were black, also his boots and gloves.

"You seem to know him so well, Butts," I remarked at last, "that I wonder more and more why he has not made you his valet."

"It's my haccent!" sighed Butts. "He can't abear it. Whenever I drop a haitch, in his 'earing, he shrivels up."

During the afternoon I borrowed half a sovereign from Butts, and purchased some fresh linen.

While dressing Sir William Dagmar later in the evening, I only spoke when he addressed me, and then in softest monosyllables. He seemed pleased with my attentions. But then I have frequently noticed that no man is hard to please whose idiosyncrasies are humoured when detected. He gave me a list of his medicines and the hours when they should be administered, after which he departed to dine at a neighbouring restaurant, in which his habit was to take most of his meals in a private room, perfectly alone.

Butts and I dined together in the pantry, and a merry time we spent, until our master's return, when noise was prohibited.

On the morrow the house was more or less in the hands of a bevy of