the
window. If there are any wasps up there I can fumigate them out. Now we
call that settled, don't we? None of your rules broken, Lethbury
regenerated, and nothing for you to do but look on and profit."

Mr. Petter gazed reflectively upon the ground.

"There can be no doubt," said he, "that Lethbury is in a stagnant
condition, and if that condition could be improved, it would be for the
benefit of us all; and considering, furthermore, that if your
project--which you have not yet explained to me--should be unsuccessful,
no one but yourself will lose any money, I see no reason why I should
interfere with your showing the people of this neighborhood that your
character has been reconstructed. But if you should lodge in that room,
it would make a very odd condition of things. I should then have but
three male guests, and not one of them literally living in my house."

"Ah, my good friend Petter," said Lanigan, taking up his valise, "you
should know there is luck in odd conditions, as well as in odd numbers,
and everything will turn out right, you may bet on that. Hello," he
continued, stepping back a little, "who is that very pretty girl with a
book in her hand? That cannot be Mrs. Cristie."

"Oh, no," said Mr. Petter, "that is her maid, who takes care of her
child. I think the young woman has come out to study before beginning
her daily duties."

"Upon my word," said Lanigan Beam, attentively regarding Miss Ida
Mayberry as she daintily made her way across the dewy lawn to a rustic
seat under a tree. And then, suddenly turning to Mr. Petter, he said:

"Look you, my good Stephen, can't you let me go in somewhere and furbish
myself up a little before breakfast?"

And having been shown into a room on the ground floor, Mr. Beam
immediately proceeded to take off his black cravat and to replace it by
the blue one with white spots.

[Illustration]

XIII

DECREES OF EXILE

Towards the end of the afternoon of the day after Mr. Lanigan Beam had
been installed as an outside guest of the Squirrel Inn, Miss Calthea
Rose sat by the window at the back of her shop. This shop was a small
one, but it differed from most other places of business in that it
contained very few goods and was often locked up. When there is reason
to suppose that if you go to a shop you will not be able to get in, and
that, should it be open, you will not be apt to find therein anything
you want, it is not likely that such a shop will have