erage day. The folk come in from the county fifty miles
off, and eat bread and treacle on the doorstep, so as to be first in
when the housekeeper comes down. The medical officer of health made an
official complaint of the over-crowding of my waiting-rooms. They wait
in the stables, and sit along the racks and under the horses' bellies.
I'll turn some of 'em on to you, my boy, and then you'll know a little
more about it."

Well, all this puzzled me a good deal, as you can imagine, Bertie; for,
making every allowance for Cullingworth's inflated way of talking, there
must be something at the back of it. I was thinking to myself that I
must keep my head cool, and have a look at everything with my own eyes,
when the carriage pulled up and we got out.

"This is my little place," said Cullingworth.

It was the corner house of a line of fine buildings, and looked to me
much more like a good-sized hotel than a private mansion. It had a broad
sweep of steps leading to the door, and towered away up to five or six
stories, with pinnacles and a flagstaff on the top. As a matter of fact,
I learned that before Cullingworth took it, it had been one of the chief
clubs in the town, but the committee had abandoned it on account of
the heavy rent. A smart maid opened the door; and a moment later I
was shaking hands with Mrs. Cullingworth, who was all kindliness and
cordiality. She has, I think, forgotten the little Avonmouth business,
when her husband and I fell out.

The inside of the house was even huger than I had thought from the look
of the exterior. There were over thirty bedrooms, Cullingworth informed
me, as he helped me to carry my portmanteau upstairs. The hall and first
stair were most excellently furnished and carpetted, but it all run
to nothing at the landing. My own bedroom had a little iron bed, and a
small basin standing on a packing case. Cullingworth took a hammer from
the mantelpiece, and began to knock in nails behind the door.

"These will do to hang your clothes on," said he; "you don't mind
roughing it a little until we get things in order?"

"Not in the least."

"You see," he explained, "there's no good my putting a forty pound suite
into a bed-room, and then having to chuck it all out of the window in
order to make room for a hundred-pound one. No sense in that, Munro!
Eh, what! I'm going to furnish this house as no house has ever been
furnished. By Crums! I'll bring the folk from a hundred miles round just