its shaggy top a thorough shaking. The hollow in front of the house soon
filled with water, and as I paced about, it suddenly struck me that I
ought to offer the shelter of the house to the magistrate.

I sent off an invitation; then after investigation I found the only spare
room encumbered with a platform of planks hanging from the beams, piled
with dirty old quilts and bolsters. Servants' belongings, an excessively
grimy mat, hubble-bubble pipes, tobacco, tinder, and two wooden chests
littered the floor, besides sundry packing-cases full of useless odds and
ends, such as a rusty kettle lid, a bottomless iron stove, a discoloured
old nickel teapot, a soup-plate full of treacle blackened with dust. In a
corner was a tub for washing dishes, and from nails in the wall hung moist
dish-clouts and the cook's livery and skull-cap. The only piece of
furniture was a rickety dressing-table with water stains, oil stains, milk
stains, black, brown, and white stains, and all kinds of mixed stains. The
mirror, detached from it, rested against another wall, and the drawers
were receptacles for a miscellaneous assortment of articles from soiled
napkins down to bottle wires and dust.

For a moment I was overwhelmed with dismay; then it was a case of--send
for the manager, send for the storekeeper, call up all the servants, get
hold of extra men, fetch water, put up ladders, unfasten ropes, pull down
planks, take away bedding, pick up broken glass bit by bit, wrench nails
from the wall one by one.--The chandelier falls and its pieces strew the
floor; pick them up again piece by piece.--I myself whisk the dirty mat
off the floor and out of the window, dislodging a horde of cockroaches,
messmates, who dine off my bread, my treacle, and the polish on my shoes.

The magistrate's reply is brought back; his tent is in an awful state and
he is coming at once. Hurry up! Hurry up! Presently comes the shout: "The