While I was engaged in this occupation there was a testy rap at the door, and Mrs. Driver appeared. She eyed my manoeuvres with the rejection form with a severe frown. After a preliminary sniff she embarked upon a rapid lecture on what she called my irregular and untidy habits. I had turned her second-floor back, she declared, into a pig-stye. “Sech a litter,” she said. “But,” I protested, “this is a Bohemian house, is it not?” She appeared so shocked—indeed, so infuriated, that I dared not give her time to answer. “The gentleman below, he’s not very tidy,” I added diplomatically. “Wot gent below?” said Mrs. Driver. I reminded her of the night of my arrival. “Oh, ’_im_,” she said, shaken. “Well, ’e’s not come back.” “Mrs. Driver,” I said sternly, “you said he’d gone out for a stroll. I refuse to believe that any man would stroll for three weeks.” “So I did say it,” was the defiant reply. “I said it so as you shouldn’t be put off coming. You looked a steady young feller, and I wanted a let. Wish I’d told you the truth, if it ’ad a-stopped you.” “What is the truth?” “’E was a wrong ’un, ’e wos. Writing begging letters to parties as was a bit soft, that wos ’_is_ little gime. But ’e wos a bit too clever one day, and the coppers got ’im. Now you know!” Mrs. Driver paused after this outburst, and allowed her eye to wander slowly and ominously round my walls. I was deeply moved. My one link with Bohemia had turned out a fraud. Mrs. Driver’s voice roused me from my meditations. “I must arst you to be good enough, if _you_ please, kindly to remove those there bits of paper.” She pointed to the rejection forms. I hesitated. I felt that it was a thing that ought to be broken gently. “The fact is, Mrs. Driver,” I said, “and no one can regret it more deeply than I do—the fact is, they’re stuck on with glue.” Two minutes later I had received my marching orders, and the room was still echoing with the slam of the door as it closed behind the indignant form of my landlady. CHAPTER 3 THE ORB _(James Orlebar Cloyster’s narrative continued)_ The problem of lodgings in London is an easy one to a man with an adequate supply of money in his pocket. The only difficulty is to select the most suitable, to single out from the eager crowd the ideal landlady. Evicted from No. 93A, it seemed to me that I had better abandon Bohemia; postpone my connection with that land of lotus-eaters for the moment, while I provided myself with the means of paying rent and buying dinners. Farther down the King’s Road there were comfortable rooms to be had for a moderate sum per week. They were prosaic, but inexpensive. I chose Walpole Street. A fairly large bed-sitting room was vacant at No. 23. I took it, and settled down seriously to make my writing pay.