As we passed through the house, we proved the truth of her words. I have never seen so many cupboards to the square mile in all my life. My wife and my sister strove to dissemble their delight. At length Cousin Jill, however, spoke frankly enough. "They really are beautiful. Think of the room they give. You'll be able to put everything away." Berry turned to me. "Isn't it enough to induce a blood-clot? 'Beautiful.' Evil-smelling recesses walled up with painted wood. Birthplaces of mice. Impregnable hot-beds of vermin. And who wants to 'put everything away'?" "Hush," said I. "They can't help it. Besides---- Hullo! Here's another bathroom." "Without a bath," observed my brother-in-law. "How very convenient! Of course, you're up much quicker, aren't you? I suppose the idea is not to keep people waiting. Come along." We passed into a bedroom. "Oh, what a dream of a paper! 'Who Won the Boat-race, or The Battle of the Blues.' Fancy waking up here after a heavy night. I suppose the designer was found 'guilty, but insane.' Another two cupboards? Thanks. That's fifty-nine. And yet another? Oh, no. The backstairs, of course. As before, approached by a door which slides to and fro with a gentle rumbling noise, instead of swinging. The same warranted to jam if opened hastily. Can't you hear Falcon on the wrong side with a butler's tray full of glass, wondering why he was born? Oh, and the bijou spiral leads to the box-room, does it? I see. Adèle's American trunks, especially the five-foot cube, will go up there beautifully. Falcon will like this house, won't he?" "I wish to goodness you'd be quiet," said Daphne. "I want to think." "It's not me," said her husband. "It's that Inter-University wall-paper. And now where's the tower? I suppose that's approached by a wire rope with knots in it?" "What tower?" said Adèle. "_The_ tower. The feature of the house. Or was it a ballroom?" "Ah," I cried, "the ballroom! I'd quite forgotten." I turned to the agent. "Didn't you say there was a ballroom?" "But yes, _Monsieur_. On the ground-floor. I will show it to you at once." We followed him downstairs in single file, and so across the hall to where two tall oak doors were suggesting a picture-gallery. For a moment the fellow fumbled at their lock. Then he pushed the two open. I did not know that, outside a palace, there was such a chamber in all France. Of superb proportions, the room was panelled from floor to ceiling with oak--richly carved oak--and every handsome panel was outlined with gold. The ceiling was all of oak, fretted with gold. The floor was of polished oak, inlaid with ebony. At the end of the room three lovely pillars upheld a minstrels' gallery, while opposite a stately oriel yawned a tremendous fireplace, with two stone seraphim for jambs.