Even the unsophisticated Amidon could perceive, now, that the drawbridge was up, the portcullis down, and all the bars and shutters of the castle in place. Moreover, in the outer darkness in which he moved, he imagined there roamed lions and wolves and ravening beasts--and he with no guide but Judge Blodgett, who stands there in the lobby, so wildly beckoning to him. X THE WRONG HOUSE When Adam strayed In Eden's bow'rs, One little maid Amused his hours. He fell! But, friend, I leave to you Where he'd have dropped Had there been two! --_Paradise Rehypothecated_. "Now, Florian," said Judge Blodgett, as they sat in Amidon's rooms, "search yourself, and see if you don't feel a dreamy sense of familiarity here in these rooms--the feeling that the long-lost heir has when he crawls down the chimney as a sweep and finds himself in his ancestral halls, you know." "Never saw a thing here before," said Amidon, "and have no feeling except surprise at the elegance about me, and a sneaking fear that Brassfield may come in at any time and eject us. The fellow had taste, anyhow!" "Didn't you recognize anything," went on the judge, "in the streets or buildings or the general landscape?" "Nothing." "Nor in the young lady? Wasn't there a sort of--of music in her voice, like long-forgotten melodies, you understand--like what the said heir notices in after years when his mother blunders on to him?" "Well," said Florian, "her voice is musical, if that's what you mean--musical and low, and reminds one of the sounds made by a great master playing his heart out in the lowest notes of the flute; but it is so far from being familiar to me that I'm quite sure I never heard a voice like it before." The judge strode up and down the room perturbedly. "Why," said he, "it's enough to make a man's hair stand!" "It does," said Amidon. "What can I say to her?" "You haven't a piece of property here," said the judge, going on with the matters uppermost in his mind, "that you could successfully maintain replevin for, if anybody converted it. They'd ask you on cross-examination if it was yours, and you'd have to say you didn't know! And there's a world of property, I find. They could take it all away from you without your knowing it, if they only knew. Have you any course mapped out--any plans?" "To a certain extent, yes," said Florian. "I shall call on her this evening." "For help, yes," said the judge. "She must bring Brassfield up, so that we can find out about some property matters." "I don't mean that," said Amidon. "I must call on Miss Waldron--Elizabeth." "And neglect----" began the judge. "Everything," said Florian firmly. "This is something that concerns my honor as a gentleman. While it remains in its present state, I can't bother with these property matters. Have I an office?" "Have you!" said the judge. "Well, just wait until you see them." "And an office force?"