miniature in a closed morocco case, a cast of Cardinal Andrea della Valle's seal from Oxford, two pairs of silver spectacles in shagreen cases, four tiny ingots of pure copper, a sponge gum bottle, and an open book with painted covers showing Eros at the knees of Psyche and a mysterious group of divers in the clear of the moon. The door was at a yard to the[Pg 9] left of the fireplace, at a right-angle. Uncared-for clothes, black serge and blue linen, hung upon it. A small wooden wash-stand stood between the door and the armchair, convenient to the writer's hand. A straw-board covered the hole in its top; and supported ink-bottles, pens, pen-knife, scissors, a lamp, a biscuit-tin of cigarette-dottels, sixteen exquisite Greek intaglj. On the lower shelf stood a row of books-of-reference. Between the wash-stand and the fire was the chair whereon Flavio slumbered, (if one may use so indelicate a word of so delicate a cat). About four feet of wall extended on the right of the fireplace. Pinned there were a pencil design for a Diamastigosis, a black and white panel of young Sophokles as Choregos after Salamis done on the back of an Admiralty chart, a water colour of Tarquinio Santacroce and Alexander VI., a pair of foils and fencing masks, and a curious Greco-Italian seal shewing St. George as a wing-footed Perseys wearing what looked like the Garter Mantle and labelled φυλαξ ἁρχηϛ. Substitutes for shelves stood against the lower part of the wall. A rush-basket, closed and full of letters, set up on end, supported files of the American Saturday Review, the Author, the Outlook, the Salpinx, Reynards's, and the Pall Mall Gazette, and a feather broom for dusting books and papers or for correcting Flavio when obstreperous. Another rush-basket, placed lengthwise on a bedroom chair, held a row of books, ms. note-books, duodecimo classics of Plantin, Estienne, Maittaire, with English and American editions of the writer's own works. The third wall was pierced by two small windows, wide open to the full always. A chest of drawers protruded endways into the room. Its top was used as a standing desk. The drawers opened towards the fourth wall. Sheaves of letters in metal clips hung at the end. Between it and the armchair, more shelves were contrived of rush-baskets placed beneath and upon a small wooden table. Books-of-reference, lexicons, and a box of blank paper, congregated here convenient to the[Pg 10] writer's hand. The little table drawer contained note-paper, envelopes, sealing-wax, and stamps. The whole was arranged so that, when once ensconced in the armchair before the fire with his writing-board on his knees, the digladiator could reach all his weapons by a simple extension of his arms. The attic was eleven feet square, low-pitched, and with half 

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