only they might engrave a sound West End address on
their notepaper. The front-door was open, disclosing the reassuring fact
that the hall and staircase were at any rate carpeted. Mr. Prohack rang
the bell attached to Ozzie's name, waited, rang again, waited, and then
marched upstairs. Perhaps Ozzie was shaving. Not being accustomed to the
organisation of tenements in fashionable quarters, Mr. Prohack was
unaware that during certain hours of the day he was entitled to ring the
housekeeper's bell, on the opposite door-jamb, and to summon help from
the basement.

As he mounted it the staircase grew stuffier and stuffier, but the
condition of the staircarpet improved. Mr. Prohack hated the place, and
at once determined to fight powerfully against Sissie's declared
intention of starting married life in her husband's bachelor-flat, for
the sake of economy. He would force the pair, if necessary, to accept
from him a flat rent-free, or he would even purchase for them one of
those bijou residences of which he had heard tell. He little dreamed
that this very house had once been described as a bijou residence. The
third floor landing was terribly small and dark, and Mr. Prohack could
scarcely decipher the name of his future son-in-law on the shabby
name-plate.

"This den would be dear at elevenpence three farthings a year," said he
to himself, and was annoyed because for months he had been picturing the
elegant Oswald as the inhabitant of something orientally and impeccably
luxurious, and he wondered that his women, as a rule so critical, had
breathed no word of the flat's deplorable approaches.

He rang the bell, and the bell made a violent and horrid sound, which
could scarcely fail to be heard throughout the remainder of the house.
No answer! Ozzie had gone. He descended the stairs, and on the
second-floor landing saw an old lady putting down a mat in front of an
open door. The old lady's hair was in curl-papers.

"I suppose," he ventured, raising his hat. "I suppose you don't happen
to know whether Mr. Morfey has gone out?"

The old lady scanned him before replying.

"He can't be gone out," she answered. "He's just been sweeping his floor
enough to wake the dead."

"Sweeping his floor!" exclaimed Mr. Prohack, shocked, thunderstruck. "I
understood these were service flats."

"So they are--in a way, but the housekeeper never gets up to this floor
before half past twelve; so it can't be the housekeeper. Besides, she's