"would you mind giving me my things? I'll try to dress."

The experiment was so far successful that Maitland left the queer bare
slit of a place called his bedroom (formed, like many Oxford bedrooms,
by a partition added to the large single room of old times), and moved
into the weirdly aesthetic study, decorated in the Early William Morris
manner.

"Now will you howl for Dakyns, and make him have this telegram sent
to the post? Awfully sorry to trouble you, but I can't howl yet for
myself," whispered Maitland, huskily, as he scribbled on a telegraph
form.

"Delighted to howl for you," said Brown, and presently the wires were
carrying a message to Barton in town. Maitland wanted to see him at
once, on very pressing business. In a couple of hours there came a
reply: Barton would be with Maitland by dinner-time.

The ghostly room, in the Early William Morris manner, looked cosey and
even homelike when the lamp was lit, when the dusky blue curtains were
drawn, and a monster of the deep--one of the famous Oxford soles, larger
than you ever see them elsewhere--smoked between Maitland and Barton.
Beside the latter stood a silver quart pot, full of "strong," a
reminiscence of "the old coaching days," when Maitland had read with
Barton for Greats. The invalid's toast and water wore an air of modest
conviviality, and might have been mistaken for sherry by anyone who
relied merely on such information as is furnished by the sense of sight
The wing of a partridge (the remainder of the brace fell to Barton's
lot) was disposed of by the patient; and then, over the wine, which he
did not touch, and the walnuts, which he tried nervously to crack in his
thin, white hands, Maitland made confession and sought advice.

It was certainly much easier talking to Barton than to Bielby, for
Barton knew so much already, especially about the _Hit or Miss_; but
when it came to the story of the guardianship of Margaret, and the kind
of prospective engagement to that young lady, Barton rose and began to
walk about the room. But the old beams creaked under him in the weak
places; and Barton, seeing how much he discomposed Maitland, sat down
again, and steadied his nerves with a glass of the famous St. Gatien's
port.

Then, when Maitland, in the orderly course of his narrative, came to the
finding of poor Dick Shields' body in the snow-cart, Barton cried, "Why,
you don't mean to say that was the man, the girl's father? By George,
I can tell you