One worn step only divided No. 7, Rue Planché, from the street. The front door was open as the two men approached, showing a very narrow, brick-paved passage, and the linen-hung garden beyond, in which _la mère_ Bénoîte, the Captain's landlady, was engaged in hanging up clothes. The Captain's rooms comprised a little _salon_ on the right, and a little _salle-à-manger_ on the left of the entrance, and up-stairs two tiny bedrooms; but before now Mr. Garth had put up a friend on the sofa of one of the ground-floor rooms, and he was prepared to offer a similar privilege to the nephew of Alexander Wallace. The _salon_ was the Captain's special den. Although the window was open, the scent of spirits and stale tobacco hung on the air, a few sporting prints adorned the walls, and the Captain's desk was littered by cuttings from sporting papers. A card-table stood in the middle of the room, and an empty bottle of cognac, half a dozen glasses, and a dirty well-thumbed pack of cards clearly showed the manner in which the Captain had spent the preceding evening. Nothing in this room was removed except by Garth's special permission; but when he caught sight of the sardonic expression on his visitor's face, he shut the door somewhat hastily, and inwardly regretted that he had not ordered the place to be put straight before leaving home that morning. "At your old tricks, I see," Armstrong observed, an unpleasant smile curving his full lips under his heavy black moustache. "Oh, just a game with the boys, to charm away homesickness in the evenings. But I must introduce you to my little girl. Laline," he cried, throwing open the door of the _salle-à-manger_, "I have brought a visitor--Mr. Wallace Armstrong!" Even Armstrong's clouded senses understood at once the contrast offered by this apartment to the dirty and neglected-looking _salon_. Here the green shutters were wide open, letting the sunlight flood the shining deal flooring, stained and polished to resemble oak, and the cheap suite of dining-room furniture, which had been beautified in the same manner. An earthenware jug, filled with poppies, marguerites, and cornflowers, stood on the mantelpiece, and a bowl of poppies on the snowy well-darned cloth laid upon the table, which article of furniture was pushed back to allow full space for the gambols of a girl, a cat, and a kitten on the uncarpeted floor.