‘What do you want?’ he cried, after glaring at me a few moments from under his pent-house brows. ‘Have you come to bring me the money?’ ‘Let me come in and explain matters,’ I said. He looked doubtfully at me for a moment, and then sullenly drew on one side and allowed me to pass in. His room was bare of furniture, except for one square deal table and a chair without a back. In one corner of the room a mattress and blanket were spread on the floor, in another a lot of books and papers were heaped confusedly together, all covered by a thick mantle of dust. A small cooking stove stood in the middle of the room, the black iron pipe from which went through a hole into the huge chimney; and a large open fireplace, which had once warmed the room, was covered with a rough framework of planks and sacking. The aspect of the place was squalid and comfortless, but it had one redeeming feature—there was a splendid view from the open window. A great fold of shining river, inclosing a stretch of marsh-land and wide green prairie, dotted with feathery aspens and monumental poplars, among which shewed here and there a cluster of farm buildings, and an occasional church spire. A black morose-looking windmill, with sails pugnaciously stretched out, as if daring an attack from some nineteenth-century Don Quixote, stood solitary on its grass toft. Range upon range of hills inclosed the landscape, dappled with the shadow of the lazy clouds; with here a dark ravine, and there a white gleaming chalk cliff. ‘You are well placed here,’ I said, making for the window. There was an overpowering smell of brandy in the room, that made one feel quite sick this fine summer morning. ‘You have a splendid view.’ ‘Well enough for that,’ growled Houlot. ‘But what is the good of a view to a hungry man?’ I noticed now that he looked haggard and starved, and that there was an unhealthy fiery flush upon his face and a wild look in his eyes, as if he had been drinking without eating for a good while. ‘You need not go hungry unless you like,’ I said. ‘I can’t lend you all the money you ask for; but anything you want for daily needs I will let you have till you get your remittances from England.’ ‘I have no remittances coming from England,’ said Houlot. ‘I have given up writing for the rascal who filched my work. But if you will only let me have that five-pound note we will put matters on a different footing. Let me shew up Collingwood Dawson!’ ‘Yes, that’s all very well; but what will you gain by it?’ ‘I shall vindicate my own name.’ ‘What! the name of Houlot?’ He winced, but retorted angrily: ‘What business is it of yours what name?’ ‘If I lend you the money to carry out your plans, it seems that I am entitled to ask what chance I have to be repaid. But apart from that, having vindicated your name, how many five-pound notes will it be worth?’