Bethnal Green, Mrs. Tesk. However, your terms will suit me, and I'll bring my boxes this afternoon. I can have a bath, I suppose?"     

       "Sixpence extra if cold and one shilling if warm."     

       "A cold bath will suit me as it is summer. Have you a valet in the house?"     

       "No, Mr. Spruce. Such a menial is only to be found in the houses of the rich, as I understand from the perusal of novels read for recreation. Here you will find plain living and high thinking. My cook is an old servant, who is able to roast and boil healthy viands. Amelia, who is sixteen, attends to the house-work, and there is the boy, Simon Jedd--commonly called Bottles, which is a facetious appellation given to him by a paying guest inclined to merriment. Such is my staff."     

       "And the paying guests?" asked Spruce, who began to think that five and twenty shillings was quite the top price to ask for such board and lodging.     

       Mrs. Tesk coughed. "Our circle is limited at present to a chosen few, as London is rather empty just now, on account of the summer season, which attracts people to the green woods and the sounding sea. There is Madame Alpenny, who is of Hungarian extraction, but who married an Englishman; together with her daughter, Zara, a dancer of repute at the Bijou Music-hall. I hesitated to accept the daughter as a paying guest,"       added Mrs. Tesk loftily, "as my education scarcely permits me to approve of the profession of Terpsichore."     

       "She was one of the Muses, you know," Spruce reminded her;       "and as this is the Home of those ladies----"     

       "Quite so," interrupted Mrs. Tesk in her most stately fashion.       "That fact may have biassed me in my permitting her to reside under my roof. Also, not having many paying guests at present, the money was a consideration, and humanity interdicted me from parting mother and child; although I am bound to say that Madame Alpenny refused to come if I did not take her daughter also. Finally I consented, and since seeing Zara dance I have not regretted my yielding. She exhibits the poetry of motion in a high degree and is quite respectable."     

       "Any other paying guests?"     

       "Mr. Edward 

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