thority.
Some of the juniors smile when I impress on them to be very careful
about their dress--quiet, of course, as becomes their situation, but
unobjectionable. With more responsibility they will see the necessity
of such details. I will remember your transparent sticking-plaster--a
most valuable suggestion."

His name was Frederick Augustus Perkins--so ran the card he left on my
table a week after I settled in the next rooms; and the problem of his
calling gradually became a standing vexation. It fell under the class
of conundrums, and one remembered from childhood that it is mean to
be told the answer; so I could not say to Mister Perkins--for it was
characteristic of the prim little man that no properly constituted
person could have said Perkins--"By the way, what is your line of
things?" or any more decorous rendering of my curiosity.

Mrs. Holmes--who was as a mother to Mr. Perkins and myself, as well
as to two younger men of literary pursuits and irregular habits--had a
gift of charming irrelevance, and was able to combine allusions to Mr.
Perkins's orderly life and the amatory tendencies of a new cook in a
mosaic of enthralling interest.

"No, Betsy Jane has 'ad her notice, and goes this day week; not that
her cookin's bad, but her brothers don't know when to leave. One was
'ere no later than last night, though if he was her born brother,
'e 'ad a different father and mother, or my name ain't 'Olmes. 'Your
brother, Betsy Jane,' says I, 'ought not to talk in a strange 'ouse on
family affairs till eleven o'clock.'

"''E left at 'alf-past ten punctual,' says she, lookin' as hinnocent
as a child, 'for I 'eard Mr. Perkins go up to 'is room as I was
lettin' Jim out.'

"'Betsy Jane,' I says, quite calm, 'where do you expeck to go to as
doesn't know wot truth is?'--for Mr. Perkins leaves 'is room has
the 'all clock starts on eleven, and 'e's in 'is bedroom at the last
stroke. If she 'adn't brought in Mr. Perkins, she might 'ave deceived
me--gettin' old and not bein' so quick in my 'earin' as I was; but
that settled her.

"'Alf-past," went on Mrs. Holmes, scornfully; "and 'im never varied
two minutes the last ten years, except one night 'e fell asleep in 'is
chair, being bad with hinfluenza.

"For a regular single gentleman as rises in the morning and goes out,
and comes in and takes 'is dinner, and goes to bed like the Medes and
Persians, I've never seen 'is equal; an' it's five-and-twenty
years since 'Olmes