nt's Park. It is quite near to the Park."

"Of course you have consulted Mr. Hasluck?" asked my mother, who of the
two was by far the more practical.

"For Hasluck," replied my father, "it will be much more convenient. He
grumbles every time at the distance."

"I have never been quite able to understand," said my mother, "why Mr.
Hasluck should have come so far out of his way. There must surely be
plenty of solicitors in the City."

"He had heard of me," explained my father. "A curiou[s] old
fellow--likes his own way of doing things. It's not everyone who would
care for him as a client. But I seem able to manage him."

Often we would go together, my father and I, to Guilford Street. It was
a large corner house that had taken his fancy, half creeper covered,
with a balcony, and pleasantly situated, overlooking the gardens of the
Foundling Hospital. The wizened old caretaker knew us well, and having
opened the door, would leave us to wander through the empty, echoing
rooms at our own will. We furnished them handsomely in later Queen
Anne style, of which my father was a connoisseur, sparing no necessary
expense; for, as my father observed, good furniture is always worth its
price, while to buy cheap is pure waste of money.

"This," said my father, on the second floor, stepping from the bedroom
into the smaller room adjoining, "I shall make your mother's boudoir.
We will have the walls in lavender and maple green--she is fond of soft
tones--and the window looks out upon the gardens. There we will put her
writing-table."

My own bedroom was on the third floor, a sunny little room.

"You will be quiet here," said my father, "and we can shut out the bed
and the washstand with a screen."

Later, I came to occupy it; though its rent--eight and sixpence a week,
including attendance--was somewhat more than at the time I ought to have
afforded. Nevertheless, I adventured it, taking the opportunity of being
an inmate of the house to refurnish it, unknown to my stout landlady, in
later Queen Anne style, putting a neat brass plate with my father's
name upon the door. "Luke Kelver, Solicitor. Office hours, 10 till 4."
A medical student thought he occupied my mother's boudoir. He was a dull
dog, full of tiresome talk. But I made acquaintanceship with him;
and often of an evening would smoke my pipe there in silence while
pretending to be listening to his monotonous brag.

The poor thing! he had no idea that he was only a fool