We then went back to the snug little room inside the bar. It was quite clear to me that the man could not manipulate the Doctor’s manuscript, of which he would have to spread a dozen sheets before him at the same time, in the place I had just visited. Even could he have occupied the chamber alone, the accommodation would not have been sufficient for the purpose. It was equally clear that he could not be allowed to use Mrs. Grimes’s snuggery. “How are we to get a place for him?” said I, appealing to the lady. “He shall have a place,” she said, “I’ll go bail; he sha’n’t lose the job for want of a workshop.” Then she sat down and began to think it over. I was just about to propose the hiring of some decent room in the neighbourhood, when she made a suggestion, which I acknowledge startled me. “I’ll have a big table put into my own bed-room,” said she, “and he shall do it there. There aint another hole or corner about the place as’d suit; and he can lay the gentleman’s papers all about on the bed, square and clean and orderly. Can’t he now? And I can see after ’em, as he don’t lose ’em. Can’t I now?” By this time there had sprung up an intimacy between ourselves and Mrs. Grimes which seemed to justify an expression of the doubt which I then threw on the propriety of such a disarrangement of her most private domestic affairs. “Mr. Grimes will hardly approve of that,” we said. “Oh, John won’t mind. What’ll it matter to John as long as Mackenzie is out in time for him to go to bed? We aint early birds, morning or night,--that’s true. In our line folks can’t be early. But from ten to six there’s the room, and he shall have it. Come up and see, Sir.” So we followed Mrs. Grimes up the narrow staircase to the marital bower. “It aint large, but there’ll be room for the table, and for him to sit at it;--won’t there now?” It was a dark little room, with one small window looking out under the low roof, and facing the heavy high dead wall of the brewery opposite. But it was clean and sweet, and the furniture in it was all solid and good, old-fashioned, and made of mahogany. Two or three of Mrs. Grimes’s gowns were laid upon the bed, and other portions of her dress were hung on pegs behind the doors. The only untidy article in the room was a pair of “John’s” trousers, which he had failed to put out of sight. She was not a bit abashed, but took them up and folded them and patted them, and laid them in the capacious wardrobe. “We’ll have all these things away,” she said, “and then he can have all his papers out upon the bed just as he pleases.”