fire-place, leering with its red eye as if it took a wicked
satisfaction in its own smell. Before the fire-place, re-reading the
already-known newspaper by the light of one gas jet, sat Johnny
Gillat. Poor old Johnny, with his round, pink face, whereon a grizzled
little moustache looked as much out of place as on a twelve-year-old
school-boy. There was something of the school-boy in his look and in
his deprecating manner, especially to Mrs. Polkington; he had always
been a little deprecating to her even when he had first known her, a
bride, while he himself was the wealthy bachelor friend of her
husband. He was still a bachelor, and still her husband's friend, but
the wealth had gone long ago. He had now only just enough to keep him,
fortunately so secured that he could not touch the principal. It was
a mercy he had it, for there was no known work at which he could have
earned sixpence, unless perhaps it was road scraping under a not too
exacting District Council. He was a harmless enough person, but when
he took it into his head to leave his lodgings in town for others,
equally cheap and nasty, at Marbridge, Mrs. Polkington felt fate was
hard upon her. It was like having two Captain Polkingtons, of a
different sort, but equally unsuitable for public use, in the place.
In self defence she had been obliged to make definite rules for Mr.
Gillat's coming and going about the house, and still more definite
rules as to the rooms in which he might be found. The dining-room was
allowed him, and there he was when Julia came.

He looked up as she entered, and smiled; he regarded her as almost as
much his friend as her father; a composite creature, and a necessary
connection between the superior and inferior halves of the household.

"Father not in, I hear," he said.

"No," Julia answered. "What a smell there is!"

Mr. Gillat allowed it. "There's something gone wrong with Bouquet," he
said, thoughtfully regarding the stove.

The "Bouquet Heater" was the name under which it was patented; it did
not seem quite honest to speak of it as a heater, so perhaps "Bouquet"
was the better name.

Julia went to it. "I should think there is," she said, and turned it
up, and turn it down, and altered the wicks, until she had improved
matters a little.

"I'm afraid your father's having larks," Johnny said, watching her.

"It's rather a pity if he is," Julia answered; "he has got to see some
one on business to-morrow."

"Who?"

"Mr.