he side door, and entered the surgery. Nobody was in it
except the surgery-boy. The boy was asleep, with his head and arms on
the counter, and the gas flared away over him. A hissing and fizzing
from Jan's room, similar to the sounds Lucy Tempest heard when she
invaded the surgery the night of the ball at Deerham Hall, saluted
Martha's ears. She went round the counter, tried the door, found it
fastened, and shook the handle.

"Who's there?" called out Master Cheese from the other side.

"It's me," said Martha "Supper's ready."

"Very well. I'll be in directly," responded Master Cheese.

"I say!" called out Martha wrathfully, rattling the handle again, "if
you are making a mess of that room, as you do sometimes, I won't have
it. I'll complain to Mr. Jan. There! Messing the floor and places with
your powder and stuff! It would take two servants to clear up after
you."

"You go to Bath," was the satisfactory recommendation of Master Cheese.

Martha called out another wrathful warning, and withdrew. Master Cheese
came forth, locked the door, took out the key, went indoors, and sat
down to supper.

Sat down in angry consternation. He threw his eager glances to every
point of the table, and could not see upon it what he was longing to
see--what he had been expecting all the evening to see--for the terrible
event of its not being there had never so much as crossed his
imagination. The dinner had consisted of a loin of pork with the
crackling on, and apple sauce--a dish so beloved by Master Cheese, that
he never thought of it without a watering of the mouth. It had been
nothing like half eaten at dinner, neither the pork nor the sauce. Jan
was at the wedding-breakfast, and the Misses West, in Master Cheese's
estimation, ate like two sparrows: of course he had looked to be regaled
with it at supper. Miss West cut him a large piece of cheese, and Miss
Amilly handed him the glass of celery.

Now Master Cheese had no great liking for that vulgar edible which bore
his name, and which used to form the staple of so many good,
old-fashioned suppers. To cheese, in the abstract, he could certainly
have borne no forcible objection, since he was wont to steal into the
larder, between breakfast and dinner, and help himself--as Martha would
grumblingly complain--to "pounds" of it. The state of the case was just
this: the young gentleman liked cheese well enough when he could get
nothing better. Cheese, however, as a substitute for c