st of the evening stuck his fork into a slice
of bacon, and politely passed it over his shoulder for Mr. Blyth to
inspect, as he stood bewildered in the middle of the room.

"Oh, delicious, delicious!" cried Valentine, smelling as daintily at the
outstretched bacon as if it had been a nosegay. "Really, my dear sir--."
He said no more; for at that moment he tripped himself up upon one of
some ten or a dozen bottle-corks which lay about on the carpet where
he was standing. There is very little doubt, if Zack had not been by
to catch him, that Mr. Blyth would just then have concluded his polite
remarks on the bacon by measuring his full length on the floor.

"Why don't you put him into a chair?" growled Mat, looking round
reproachfully from the frying-pan, as Valentine recovered his erect
position again with young Thorpe's assistance.

"I was just going to swab up that part of the carpet when you came in,"
said Zack, apologetically, as he led Mr. Blyth to a chair.

"Oh don't mention it," answered Valentine, laughing. "It was all my
awkwardness."

He stopped abruptly again. Zack had placed him with his back to the
fire, against a table covered with a large and dirty cloth which flowed
to the floor, and under which, while he was speaking, he had been gently
endeavoring to insinuate his legs. Amazement bereft him of the power of
speech when, on succeeding in this effort, he found that his feet came
in contact with a perfect hillock of empty bottles, oyster-shells, and
broken crockery, heaped under the table. "Good gracious me! I hope I'm
doing no mischief!" exclaimed Valentine, as a miniature avalanche of
oyster-shells clattered down on his intruding foot, and a plump bottle
with a broken neck rolled lazily out from under the table-cloth, and
courted observation on the open floor.

"Kick about, dear old fellow, kick about as much as you please," cried
Zack, seating himself opposite Mr. Blyth, and bringing down a second
avalanche of oyster-shells to encourage him. "The fact is, we are rather
put to it for space here, so we keep the cloth always laid for dinner,
and make a temporary lumber-room of the place under the table. Rather
a new idea that, I think--not tidy perhaps, but original and ingenious,
which is much better."

"Amazingly ingenious!" said Valentine, who was now beginning to be
amused as well as surprised by his reception in Kirk Street. "Rather
untidy, perhaps, as you say, Zack; but new, and not disagreeabl