painfully meagre proportions.) "It might be as well to put that large
coal-box in her room--you know the one I mean--and make the charge
eightpence."

The box in question was certainly of imposing exterior proportions, but
its tin lining was of a quite different domestic period and made no
pretensions as to fitting. It lay loosely inside its sham mahogany
casing like the shrivelled kernel of a nut in its shell.

"The big coal-scuttle really doesn't hold twopenny-worth more coal than
the others," observed Miss Bunting tentatively.

A dull flush mounted to Mrs. Lawrence's cheek. She liked the prospect of
screwing an extra twopence out of one of her boarders, but she hated
having the fact so clearly pointed out to her. There were times when she
found Miss Bunting's conscientiousness something of a trial.

"It's a much larger box," she protested sharply.

"Yes. I know it is--outside. But the lining only holds two more knobs
than the sixpenny ones."

Mrs. Lawrence frowned.

"Do I understand that you--you actually measured the amount it contains?"
she asked, with bitterness.

"Yes," retorted Miss Bunting valiantly. "And compared it with the
others. It was when you told me to put the eightpenny scuttle in Miss
Jenkins' room. She complained at once."

"Then you exceeded your duties, Miss Bunting. You should have referred
Miss Jenkins to me."

Miss Bunting made no reply. She had acted precisely in the way
suggested, but Miss Jenkins, a young art-student of independent opinions,
had flatly declined to be "referred" to Mrs. Lawrence.

"It's not the least use, Bunty dear," she had said. "I'm not going to
have half an hour's acrimonious conversation with Mrs. Lawrence on the
subject of twopennyworth of coal. At the same time I haven't the
remotest intention of paying twopence extra for those two lumps of excess
luggage, so to speak. So you can just trot that sarcophagus away, like
the darling you are, and bring me back my sixpenny scuttle again."

And little Miss Bunting, in her capacity of buffer state between Mrs.
Lawrence and her boarders, had obeyed and said nothing more about the
matter.

"I have to go out now," continued Mrs. Lawrence, after a pause pregnant
with rebuke. "You will receive Miss Quentin on her arrival and attend to
her comfort. And put the large coal-box in her sitting-room as I
directed," she added firmly.

So it came about that when, half an hour later, a taxi-cab buzzed up to