Christopher eagerly put on his hat and tailed coat, and wrote a legend announcing that because of unavoidable matters his shop would be closed for a few hours, which he stuck upon the door; then he turned the key in the lock with care and, with mademoiselle at his side, proceeded in the direction of Pump Court. This was a wide court, of no great depth, with three broad-fronted houses on each side of it, and a cool flagged space between; and in the center stood the pump, with a tub under its spout, from which the court took its name. There was a little fringe of grass about the edge of each of the houses, and vines climbed the walls; the shutters were green and stood wide; the door- and window-frames were white. Christopher pointed to the sloping roof of one of the houses, where a dormer-window leaned outward. "That," said the little apothecary, "is Tom Horn's lodgings." They climbed the wide, solid steps, and at the top of the house knocked upon a door. Tom Horn opened it; he did not seem at all surprised, but only opened it a great deal wider when he saw who it was. "Come in," he said. "I am glad to see you." The room was a very large one and sparely furnished; on a broad table, with lighted candles set about it, was a great clutter of papers. "Figures," said Christopher, as he looked down at the papers. "All figures." He looked at Tom Horn and rubbed his own shining crown. "They must be like a spoken language to you." "Figures are truer and more dependable than a language made of words," said Tom Horn. "The circles come at through them are perfect ones. There is no bending them to other shapes. Words, now, can be wrought to fit both prejudice and unreason." "That is true," said the little apothecary, and he turned a look upon mademoiselle which told of his admiration for the saying. "That is very true, indeed." There were bare spaces upon the walls of Tom Horn's lodgings, and pinned there were what looked like maps, but maps such as neither mademoiselle nor Christopher had ever seen before. For about the islands and along the headlands and through the bulk of the sea itself were drawn long lines which curled slowly toward an inevitable roundness. Figures were set down in red ink along these lines, and arrows of blue pointed out their circular, grasping sweep. Upon the mantel was a slim array of books, and mademoiselle, as she looked at their worn sheep bindings and their inked-in titles, saw that astronomy, navigation, and geometry were the matters there dealt with. The place had a clean, bare look; the single twinkling light in the court could be seen from the high window; a thrush on an open perch stirred now and then and chirped sleepily; and a wooden-wheeled clock ticked and grumbled in its high case. Mademoiselle listened to the two men for a space after they had settled down, and then, in a silence between them, she spoke to Tom Horn.