“And what next? They'd strike William's stratum next, the third floor. Imagine it! You know William as a State Street broker, well-off, a widower, tall, angular, slow of speech, a little bald, very much nearsighted, and the owner of the kindest heart in the world. But really to know William, you must know his rooms. William collects things. He has always collected things--and he's saved every one of them. There's a tradition that at the age of one year he crept into the house with four small round white stones. Anyhow, if he did, he's got them now. Rest assured of that--and he's forty this year. Miniatures, carved ivories, bugs, moths, porcelains, jades, stamps, postcards, spoons, baggage tags, theatre programs, playing-cards--there isn't anything that he doesn't collect. He's on teapots, now. Imagine it--William and teapots! And they're all there in his rooms--one glorious mass of confusion. Just fancy those archaeologists trying to make their 'monk' live there! “But when they reach me, my stratum, they'll have a worse time yet. You see, _I_ like cushions and comfort, and I have them everywhere. And I like--well, I like lots of things. My rooms don't belong to that monk, not a little bit. And so you see,” Bertram would finish merrily, “that's why I call it all 'The Strata.'” And “The Strata” it was to all the Henshaws' friends, and even to William and Cyril themselves, in spite of their objection to the term. From babyhood the Henshaw boys had lived in the handsome, roomy house, facing the Public Garden. It had been their father's boyhood home, as well, and he and his wife had died there, soon after Kate, the only daughter, had married. At the age of twenty-two, William Henshaw, the eldest son, had brought his bride to the house, and together they had striven to make a home for the two younger orphan boys, Cyril, twelve, and Bertram, six. But Mrs. William, after a short five years of married life, had died; and since then, the house had known almost nothing of a woman's touch or care.