agrant's air of irresponsible well-being to their home, which was in a
narrow street sloping upwards out of the Toledo--sloping up steeply, and
laid out in shallow steps.

The Crevequers lived in a flat at the top of a tall pink house. None of
the occupants of the house seemed to have yet retired; most of them were
in the street outside. The Crevequers stayed for a little to talk to
them, then went in and climbed many flights of dark stone stairs, and
came at last into the room where they lived. The room had an inexpensive
air. It had, however, no lack of contents, and these were, without
exception, in unexpected places; the books, for instance, lay on the
floor in a corner--a battered selection from the light literature of two
languages. There were papers, half-finished drawings, writing and
painting materials, littered over the table among half-emptied bottles,
cigarettes, and unwashed glasses. The ceiling was interesting; it was
partially covered with a design in bold colours, unfinished; it gave the
impression of being worked at, spasmodically, at irregular intervals, by
more than one artist; it had an interesting air of awaiting the next
inspiration. It was an untrammelled composite, so far, of the beauties
of nature, imaginative and highly exciting dramatic incident, and
scenes from pagan lore, with, whenever imagination or space required
padding, a cherub plunging through a festoon of flowers. Some of the
designs bore a vaguely familiar air; the visitor to Pompei might have
recognized, for instance, the lady on her knees with a bird's-nest full
of infants. The most note-worthy point about this ceiling was that it
was really not badly painted.

The most comfortable features of the room were two large arm-chairs, one
on each side of the stove. Tommy cleared a space in one of them and
subsided into it. Betty dragged a spirit-lamp and a saucepan of milk
from under the table and knelt over it, whistling a soft, tired little
tune the while. Tommy, lying in his chair, whistled too, feeling in his
pockets for matches.

'Cocoa, Tommy?' Betty broke her tune to say.

'No.' He had found a match, and was scraping it perseveringly on his
knee. 'It's going to boil over,' he remarked.

She caught it off with a deft hand and poured it into a cup, and,
carrying it to the other arm-chair, in which she did not trouble to
clear a space, she lay back with a sigh of contented languor.

'Cigarette, please. Thank you.'

There was