about
the last tenant, and about the present tenants on either side, and about
themselves, and how all the other houses in the neighbourhood are damp,
and how they remember when the site of the house was a cornfield, and
what they do for their rheumatism. As one hears them giving a most
delightful vent to their loquacity, the artistic house-hunter feels all
the righteous self-applause of a kindly deed. Sometimes they get
extremely friendly. One old gentleman--to whom anyone under forty must
have seemed puerile--presented the gentle writer with three fine large
green apples as a kind of earnest of his treatment: apples, no doubt, of
some little value, since they excited the audible envy of several little
boys before they were disposed of.

Sometimes the landlord has even superintended the building of the house
himself, and then it often has peculiar distinctions--no coal cellar, or
a tower with turrets, or pillars of ornamental marble investing the
portico with disproportionate dignity. One old gentleman, young as old
gentlemen go, short of stature, of an agreeable red colour, and with
short iron-grey hair, had a niche over the front door containing a piece
of statuary. It gave one the impression of the Venus of Milo in
chocolate pyjamas. "It was nood at first," said the landlord, "but the
neighbourhood is hardly educated up to art, and objected. So I gave it
that brown paint."

On one expedition the artistic house-hunter was accompanied by Euphemia.
Then it was he found Hill Crest, a vast edifice at the incredible rent
of L40 a year, with which a Megatherial key was identified. It took the
two of them, not to mention an umbrella, to turn this key. The rent was
a mystery, and while they were in the house--a thunderstorm kept them
there some time--they tried to imagine the murder. From the top windows
they could see the roofs of the opposite houses in plan.

"I wonder how long it would take to get to the top of the house from the
bottom?" said Euphemia.

"Certainly longer than we could manage every day," said the artistic
house-hunter. "Fancy looking for my pipe in all these rooms. Starting
from the top bedroom at the usual time, I suppose one would arrive
downstairs to breakfast about eleven, and then we should have to be
getting upstairs again by eight o'clock if we wanted any night's rest
worth having. Or we might double or treble existence, live a Gargantuan
life to match the house, make our day of forty-eight ho