with a large key and, turning up the gas, revealed the usual
lodging-house hall that is and was and always shall be eternally the
same as long as lodgings and landladies exist. It had a yellowish paper
blotted with large blurred flowers of a reddish hue, a steel engraving
of the "Derby Day" hung by the hat-stand, and the woodwork was of bright
yellow graining.

Carminow's rooms were on the second floor; after the first landing had
been passed the stairs suddenly altered in character, and from being
carpeted and fairly wide took onto themselves linoleum and a steep
straightness that said plainly: "Up to here two guineas a week; above
here only thirty shillings, with half-a-crown for extras." Higher still
bare boards advertised the fact that only "bed-sitters" or even plain
bedrooms were to be found.

Carminow's rooms ran the depth of the house, the front one, his
sitting-room, being separated from the bedroom by folding doors of the
same bright yellow as the doors in the hall. Into the sitting-room he
ushered his guests, and they knocked helplessly up against sharp angles
while Carminow pawed and patted round the room for matches, obstinately
refusing the offers of their boxes because he said he was trying to
train his landlady to keep his in the same place. Killigrew,
uninterested in the education of landladies, finally insisted on
striking one of his own, and uttered a shriek of joy when the faint
gleam revealed a glass jar in which a greenish-white fragment of a body
floated forlornly. Finally the gas was lit, the table cleared of papers
and books, and bottles of beer placed upon it instead. They had just
settled down to villainously strong cigars and the beer when a sound
very unexpected to two of them floated out upon the air--the sound of a
girl singing. The voice was a rather deep mezzo; it was singing very