hawthorn tree in bloom, which shuddered gently in the fog-shine like a discontented spectre. And those ridiculous fat houses stood there stoutly, shoulder to shoulder, one hundred and sixty of them, eyeing her with dolour. And a voice beneath my window made speech, saying loudly: "You give me my daughter's combings back, ye thievin' slut." So I left the window and lighted a pipe and crawled back into bed.

*      *      *      *      *

And then, as the story writers say, a strange thing happened. There came a sudden tap upon my bedroom door, and without further warning there entered in a—a lady. She was rather a young lady, to be sure, some fifteen years of age, perhaps. And she was wearing a petticoat—a striped petticoat—and her hair was dressed into innumerable pigtails, and her top was covered by—by a—a—don't they call it a camisole? And she bade me "Good-morning," very calmly.

"G—G—Good-morning!" I responded. I hoped to heaven that I was not blushing.

"Don't trouble to scream," said the lady, in an off-hand manner. "It is all right: I have come for my stockings."

"Really," I began, a little hotly, "I haven't ta——" And then I stopped. A horrible thought presented itself to me.

Doctor Brink no doubt combined the practice of alienism with that of spot-cash cures. And this lady was doubtless an "inmate." And——

The voice of the inmate interrupted me. "It's quite all right, really it is. I'm not accusing you of theft or anything else. I only want to get my stockings from this cupboard. Mrs. Gomm, our 'char,' she mixes things up so. And I want a brown pair, because this is my day for being respectable with my aunt at Ealing, and you wear your brown dress and a neat toque for that sort of thing; and where the devil that woman has—oh, here we are. Want darning, of course. Damn!"

Swearing seemed to be a widespread habit in this unusual household. I coughed—the sort of cough you use when children are present and your deaf Uncle David is reviving his recollections of India in the sixties.

"I say," protested my visitor, "you really needn't look so worried. It's all right, really. This is my room, you know; theoretically, you know. Only I always sleep in the bathroom (we've got a bath-room, you know, and there's a lid to it, and I sleep on that), and I always sleep there because it's a long way from Fatty, and I can't hear him raving when the night-bell rings. And Fatty——"

"Pardon me," I cried, "but who is Fatty?"

The lady looked at me a little blankly. "Who is Fatty?" she repeated, but then broke off, a light as of understanding in her eye. "I was forgetting," she said. "Of course, you wouldn't know. Well, it is like this, you see. This house belongs to a man called Brink, who is a doctor and——"

"I know all that," I assured her.

"Oh, you do know all about it, then," quoth she; "I wasn't sure, you know. Most of the strange people that I find in my bedroom if I happen to look in for anything don't know anything at all about us. Fatty finds them—gathers them up, you know—and brings them home and feeds them and converts them to Socialism and puts them to bed, and when they wake up in the morning they have to have it all explained to them. Fatty is Dr. Brink, you know. One always calls him Fatty, because his proper names are Theobald Henry de la Rue, and you simply haven't time in the mumps season. You're a reformer, I suppose? What do you reform?"

"Reform!" I cried, "what do I reform? Why, I don't reform at all. I've never reformed a blue-bottle."

"But surely you're against something or other. You must be against something!"

"Oh, well," I answered, "if it comes to that, I—I——"

"Just so," assented the lady. "Don't go into particulars. They all particularise. I could stand much from you—more than usual, I mean—because you are clean-shaven, and that is such a change from most of the other powerful thinkers whom one finds here in the morning. They are staunch, you know, and sound on the Education Question and all that sort of thing, and they are a useful hobby for Fatty to take up; but they're rather old and solemn, as a rule, you know. And they do go into details! Now you seem rather jolly; and when you've got up and we've been properly introduced and I've boiled your egg, I'll show you my white rats. Do you like white rats?"

"I adore them," said your servant.

"Good. And, I say, I hope you won't mind, but you'll have to toilet yourself in the kitchen sink. Our 'char's' such a rotter, you know, and I see she hasn't filled your jug—she never does—and she doesn't come till ten, and I've got to finish dressing, and Fatty's out on a call, and there's all the breakfast to get; and when you've done your toilet do you mind just putting a match to the gas stove and sticking a kettle on? Thanks awfully." ... My fair guest flung herself upon the door. All of her, save a corner of the stripy petticoat, had disappeared, when I put in the important question.

"I say," I cried, "who are you?"

"Me," cried a voice from behind the door—"me? Oh ... I am James."

III

FIRST IMPRESSIONS

With breakfast came the opportunity of renewing my entente with James. That young lady appeared now fully clothed in the conventional garments of her age, even to a pinafore with seven pockets.

"What do you put in all those pockets?" I inquired, as she tripped in with the bacon.

"Most of them," she answered, "contain white rats.... I thought," she added, eyeing me closely, as I drifted in a thoughtful manner to the far end of the table, "I thought you adored white rats?"

"That is quite so," I responded. "The dear, dumb creatures! I—I idolise them."

"Why do you idolise them?" demanded James, putting on a very subtile smile.

"Because," I answered, "because they—they are so dumb and—and so white."

"Then why do you shudder at them?"

I explained my attitude towards white rats. "It is not fear which makes me seem to shrink," I pointed out, "only a sense of—of—well, you see, the white rats which I have previously adored were confined within a cage, which contained a sort of treadmill, which they worked with their feet, and you watched this talented display from a distance, and wondered if they never grew tired. But——"

"Those wheel-cages," interpolated James, "are the most