"Of course, now that you have come, we mean to be nice to you, that is as nice as we can. Because the thing is that we are not in a condition to receive visitors. Do we look as if we were?" To be frank, they did not. Even Madge was a little unkempt, while the boys were in what I believe is the average state of the average boy. "And," murmured Madge, "where is Mr. Christopher to sleep?" "What is he to eat?" inquired Bessie. She glanced at my packages. "I suppose you have brought nothing with you?" "I'm afraid I haven't. I had hoped to have found something ready for me on my arrival." Again they peeped at each other, as if ashamed. Madge repeated her former suggestion. "There's to-morrow's dinner." "Oh, hang it!" exclaimed Rupert. "It's not so bad as that. There's a ham." "Uncooked." "You can cut a steak off, or whatever you call it, and have it broiled." A meal was got ready, in the preparation of which every member of the family took a hand. And a room was found for me, in which was a blazing fire and traces of recent feminine occupation. I suspected that Madge had yielded her own apartment as a shelter for the stranger. By the time I had washed and changed my clothes, the impromptu dinner, or supper, or whatever it was, was ready. A curious repast it proved to be; composed of oddly contrasted dishes, cooked--and sometimes uncooked--in original fashion. But hunger, that piquant sauce, gave it a relish of its own. At first no one seemed disposed to join me. By degrees, however, one after another found a knife and fork, until all the eight were seated with me round the board, eating, some of them, as if for dear life. "The fact is," explained Rupert, "we're a rum lot. We hardly ever sit down together. We don't have regular meals, but whenever anyone feels peckish, he goes and gets what there is, and cooks it and eats it on his own." "It's not quite so bad as that," protested Madge, "though it's pretty bad." It did seem pretty bad, from the conventional point of view. From their conversation, which was candour itself, I gleaned details which threw light upon the peculiar position of affairs. It seemed that their father had been dead some seven years. Their mother, who had been always delicate, had allowed them to run nearly wild. Since she died, some ten months back, they appeared to have run quite wild. The house, with some six hundred acres of land, was theirs, and an income, as to whose exact amount no one seemed quite clear. "It's about eight hundred a year," said Rupert. "I don't think it's quite so much," doubted Madge. "I'm sure it's more," declared Bessie. "I believe we're being robbed."