ay step in. This is my own
little sanctum, and furnished after my own heart."

If Robert expected to see some fresh exhibition of wealth and luxury
he was woefully disappointed, for he found himself in a large but bare
room, with a little iron truckle-bed in one corner, a few scattered
wooden chairs, a dingy carpet, and a large table heaped with books,
bottles, papers, and all the other _debris_ which collect around a busy
and untidy man. Motioning his visitor into a chair, Raffles Haw pulled
off his coat, and, turning up the sleeves of his coarse flannel shirt,
he began to plunge and scrub in the warm water which flowed from a tap
in the wall.

"You see how simple my own tastes are," he remarked, as he mopped his
dripping face and hair with the towel. "This is the only room in my
great house where I find myself in a congenial atmosphere. It is homely
to me. I can read here and smoke my pipe in peace. Anything like luxury
is abhorrent to me."

"Really, I should not have though it," observed Robert.

"It is a fact, I assure you. You see, even with your views as to the
worthlessness of wealth, views which, I am sure, are very sensible and
much to your credit, you must allow that if a man should happen to be
the possessor of vast--well, let us say of considerable--sums of money,
it is his duty to get that money into circulation, so that the community
may be the better for it. There is the secret of my fine feathers. I
have to exert all my ingenuity in order to spend my income, and yet keep
the money in legitimate channels. For example, it is very easy to give
money away, and no doubt I could dispose of my surplus, or part of my
surplus, in that fashion, but I have no wish to pauperise anyone, or to
do mischief by indiscriminate charity. I must exact some sort of money's
worth for all the money which I lay out You see my point, don't you?"

"Entirely; though really it is something novel to hear a man complain of
the difficulty of spending his income."

"I assure you that it is a very serious difficulty with me. But I have
hit upon some plans--some very pretty plans. Will you wash your hands?
Well, then, perhaps you would care to have a look round. Just come into
this corner of the room, and sit upon this chair. So. Now I will sit
upon this one, and we are ready to start."

The angle of the chamber in which they sat was painted for about six
feet in each direction of a dark chocolate-brown, and was furnished with
two