ed quite still.

CHAPTER III

KRAKATOA VILLA, AND HOW THE ELECTROCUTED TRAVELLER WENT THERE IN A
CAB. A CURIOUS WELCOME TO A PERFECT STRANGER. THE STRANGER'S LABEL.
A CANCELLED MEMORY. BACK LIKE A BAD SHILLING

Krakatoa was a semi-detached villa, a few minutes' walk from
Shepherd's Bush Station. It looked like a showily dressed wife of a
shabby husband; for the semi-detached other villa next door had been
standing to let for years, and its compo front was in a state of
decomposition from past frosts, and its paint was parched and thin
in the glare of the present June sun, and peeling and dripping
spiritlessly from the closed shutters among the dead flies behind
the cracked panes of glass that had quite forgotten the meaning of
whitening and water, and that wouldn't hack out easy by reason of
the putty having gone 'ard. One knew at a glance that if the turncock
was to come, see, and overcome the reluctance of the allotted
cock-to-be-turned, the water would burst out at every pore of the
service-pipes in that house, except the taps; and would know also
that the adept who came to soften their hearts and handles would have
to go back for his tools, and would be a very long time away.

Krakatoa, on the other hand, was resplendent with stone-colour, and
smelt strongly of it. And its door you could see through the glass of
into the hall, when its shutters were not thumb-screwed up over the
panes, was painted a green that staggered the reason, and smelt even
more strongly than the stone-colour. And all the paint was so thick
that the beadings on the door were dim memories, and all the execution
on the sculptured goblets on pedestals flanking the steps in the front
garden was as good as spoiled. And the paint simmered in the sun, and
here and there it blistered and altogether suggested that Krakatoa,
like St. Nicholas, might have halved its coats with the beggar next
door--given him, suppose, one flat and one round coat. Also, that
either the job had been 'urried, and not giv' proper time to dry, or
that the summer had come too soon, and we should pay for it later on,
you see if we didn't!

The coatless and woe-begone villa next door had almost lost its name,
so faded was the lettering on the gate-post that was putting out its
bell-handle to the passer-by, even as the patient puts out his tongue
to the doctor. But experts in palimpsests, if they had penetrated the
superscriptions in chalk and pencil of idle aut