n, perhaps, you can _play_ the piano, too."

Mary Ann got very red. "No, sir; missus never showed me how to do that."

Lancelot surrendered himself to a roar of laughter. "This is a real
original," he said to himself, just a touch of pity blending with his
amusement.

"I suppose, though, you'd be willing to lend a hand occasionally?" he
could not resist saying.

"Missus says I must do anything I'm asked," she said, in distress, the
tears welling to her eyes. And a merciless bell mercifully sounding from
an upper room, she hurried out.

How much Mary Ann did, Lancelot never rightly knew, any more than he knew
the number of lodgers in the house, or who cooked his chops in the
mysterious regions below stairs. Sometimes he trod on the toes of boots
outside doors and vaguely connected them with human beings, peremptory
and exacting as himself. To Mary Ann each of those pairs of boots was a
personality, with individual hours of rising and retiring, breakfasting
and supping, going out and coming in, and special idiosyncrasies of diet
and disposition. The population of 5 Baker's Terrace was nine, mostly
bell-ringers. Life was one ceaseless round of multifarious duties; with
six hours of blessed unconsciousness, if sleep were punctual. All the
week long Mary Ann was toiling up and down the stairs or sweeping them,
making beds or puddings, polishing boots or fire-irons. Holidays were
not in Mary Ann's calendar; and if Sunday ever found her on her knees, it
was only when she was scrubbing out the kitchen. All work and no play
makes Jack a dull boy; it had not, apparently, made Mary Ann a bright
girl.

The piano duly came in through the window like a burglar. It was a good
instrument, but hired. Under Lancelot's fingers it sang like a bird and
growled like a beast. When the piano was done growling Lancelot usually
started. He paced up and down the room, swearing audibly. Then he would
sit down at the table and cover ruled paper with hieroglyphics for hours
together. His movements were erratic to the verge of mystery. He had no
fixed hours for anything; to Mary Ann he was hopeless. At any given
moment he might be playing on the piano, or writing on the curiously
ruled paper, or stamping about the room, or sitting limp with despair in
the one easy-chair, or drinking whisky and water, or smoking a black
meerschaum, or reading a book, or lying in bed, or driving away in a
hansom, or walking about Heaven alone kn