He crushed it up, crammed it into the grate, and arranged broken pieces of band-box above it with mathematical precision, then he rummaged a broken chair out of an inner room, smashed the rotten legs across his knees, and added them to the heap, which at the first touch of the match shot into flame. “It will clean the brutal air,” he remarked, “and it is quite cold enough for a fire. I wish I had stayed where I was till June. Tolly’s bout might have been over by that time. Not so much as the smell of an oil rag here,” he continued reflecting, “I must go out and forage.” Putting another chunk of chair on the fire and forcing a side window open with an ease that spoke well for his condition, he went out and returned shortly with a big knobbly parcel in one hand, and a smooth brown-paper one in the other. From the first he produced a huge wedge of steak, some cut slices of ham, and a loaf of bread, the brown held a bottle of beer. When the fire had burnt down to a hot bed of cinders, Strange put the tongs across it, the poker and a piece of thick wire he had poked out of a cupboard across these, then balanced the steak on the top of this gridiron, and watched it fizzling and sputtering with a gratified air of expectancy. “I left a gridiron, a saucepan, and a kettle in the bottom of that cupboard,” he mused, keeping a keen eye on the grill, “all in decent condition. Tolly again! I’ll put the fear of God in the fellow’s heart before to-morrow’s out, ‘That must be to-morrow, not to-night.’ A sell for me, my boy, if not for you, I feel just up to it now, by to-morrow the desire may have lost its savour. I must find something to put this steak on and to hold the beer. Not a sign of my pewter! Phew, one cracked glass! Lord! there were dozens! and one hot-water plate with half the delft off it, I could swear I left that shelf full of crockery! and after this a Christian man is expected to do no murder!” When he had got half through the slab of steak a strong thirst came on Strange. “There is a cork-screw in one of my inner pockets,” he reflected, looking lazily round, “never mind, this is shorter!” He stretched out his arm for the poker, and with it, knocked the top of the bottle clean off and drank his beer with wholesome satisfaction. When he had eaten and drunk enough, he pushed back his plate and glass, and took a bundle of quills and some MS. paper out of a small cabinet. “Seemingly Tolly has found no use for these,” he thought, as he sharpened a quill. He then produced a bundle of smudgy notes from an inner pocket and laid them by the paper. “I’ll have a thorough good smoke,” he said, stretching his legs “and then I’ll be game for six hours’ work. I swear,” he continued, rubbing his hideous, inch-long, bristly, reddish beard, “I’ll not touch an individual bristle of this mat till Lynton has got his first consignment of ‘copy’, then I shall clean up and resume civilization.”