’Don’t interrupt me, Meg; consequently you must tell the agent that you desire a new up-to-date dwelling with a small garden overlooked on either side (since we are cheerful souls and love the company of our fellows). Then they would give you orders to view old houses with little latticed windows and winding stairs. Methinks if you said you _must_ have lincrusta and white enamel you might even get oak panelling.’ After dinner Ross departed upstairs, said he had things to do and then he was going to bed. To bed? To walk his room all night, with Brown, unbeknown to my brother, pacing up and down the passage. I sat by my fire and read. At one o’clock, Ross knocked me up. As I went into the corridor Brown barred his door. ’I daren’t, ma’am. Please don’t ask me. Not after last time, miss.’ ’Let her in, Brown,’ cried Ross. ’I knocked her up, you ass! Worrying?’ he asked me laconically as I went in. ’Yes.’ ’Like to make tea then? got such a rotten "go" on, Meg.’ And then he fainted, and I called to Brown. He got his master into bed, while I flew round for brandy. ’Give me some water,’ said my reviving brother. ’No, I won’t,’ said Brown, ’you’ll take the brandy, Master Ross, or I’ll thrash you like I did that day in Hickley Woods when you fell and cut your knee and sprained your ankle, and tried to prevent me going for the doctor.’ Ross was so dumbfounded that he took the brandy meekly. ’Now these aspirins,’ said Brown, ’and I’m going to light the fire. The room is like an ice-house. I’m about fed up.’ When he arose from the fireplace he was once again the suave, impassive servant. ’I should wish to give a month’s warning, sir. I don’t seem able to give you satisfaction.’ And there was a desolating silence. ’Anything more I can do for you to-night, sir?’ ’Yes,’ said Ross, ’stop playing the goat.’ But Brown’s face remained hard and impassive. ’Want me to eat humble pie, I suppose,’ said Ross, and surveyed his servant as if he had just suddenly seen him. ’Yes, sir, I think it would be a good thing.’ ’Well, then, I’ve been a devil all the week.’ But Brown still waited. ’Want more pie?’ asked my erring brother. ’That’s as you feel, sir,’ said Brown. So Ross, with the air of a man who thought it a pity to spoil the ship of repentance for a ha’porth of grace, said ’Sorry.’ ’Don’t name it, sir,’ said Brown, and I so rejoiced over the sinner that repented that I forgot to remind him to say ’punchbowl.’ Just as Brown went through the door, Ross called out, ’Got another place, Sam?’ Sam suddenly came to life again. ’Will you see the doctor in the morning?’ ’Oh, have it your own way,’ growled Ross. ’Then I’ve got a place,’ said Sam. ’Get us some tea, then,’ my brother ordered, ’and come and have a cup yourself.’ ’Certainly not, sir, with Miss Meg—Margaret, I mean,’ he said, getting deeper into the mire. ’Do you usually call my sister by her Christian name?’