hat is all Virgil, and Virgil doesn't count.

The point we have to do with is that the walls at No. 7 did _not_ dry.
And you must bear in mind that it was not only Mrs. Prichard's apartment
that was replastered, but that there was a lot done to the ceiling of
Aunt M'riar's room as well, and a bit of the cornice tore away where the
wall gave; so that the surveyor he ordered, when he come to see it, all
the brickwork to come down as far as flush with the window, which had to
be allowed extra for on the contract. Hence the decision--and even that
was coming on to November--that the children should stop with their
granny at Ealing while their aunt come up to get things a little in
order, and the place well aired.

Aunt M'riar's return for this purpose drags the story on two or three
weeks, but may just as well be told now as later.

When she made this second journey up to London, she found Mr. Bartlett's
ministrations practically ended, his only representatives being a man, a
boy, and a composite smell, whereof one of the components was the smell
of the man. Another, at the moment of her arrival, putty, was going
shortly to be a smell of vivid green paint, so soon as ever he had got
these two or three panes made good. For he was then going to put a
finishing coat on all woodwork previously painted, and leave his pots in
the way till he thought fit to send for them, which is a house-painter's
prerogative. He seemed to be able to absorb lead into his system without
consequences.

"There's been a young sarsebox making inquiry arter you, missis," said
this artist, striving with a lump of putty that no incorporation could
ever persuade to become equal to new. He was making it last out, not to
get another half-a-pound just yet a while. "Couldn't say his name, but I
rather fancy he belongs in at the end house."

Aunt M'riar identified the description, and went up to her room
wondering why that young Micky had been asking for her. Uncle Moses was
away, presumably at The Sun. She busied herself in endeavours to
reinstate her sleeping-quarters. Disheartening work!--we all know it,
this circumventing of Chaos. Aunt M'riar worked away at it, scrubbed the
floor and made the bed, taking the dryness of the sheets for granted
because it was only her and not Dolly to-night, and she could give them
a good airing in the kitchen to-morrow. The painter-and-glazier,
without, painted and glazed; maintaining a morose silence except when he
im