XXVI. MR. DABNEY AGAIN SUFFERS, AND THE YOUNGER GENERATION DOES NOT KNOCK AT THE DOOR BUT WALKS RIGHT IN AND TALKS EXTRAORDINARY STRAIGHT TALK XXVII. MISS GOLD SHOWS ME THE WAY XXVIII. REACHING A POINT WHERE MY HISTORY BEGINS TO BE WORTH RECORDING, I CEASE TO NARRATE IT OVER BEMERTON'S CHAPTER I ONE TRAVELLER RETURNS AND FINDS A HOME IN WESTMINSTER "Mr. Falconer," said Naomi to Mrs. Duckie, "wants quiet, clean rooms and the simplest cooking. Rarely anything but breakfast, and that very light. It must be in this neighbourhood, so as to be near Queen Anne's Gate." Mrs. Duckie said that hers were the quietest rooms in London and almost the nearest to Queen Anne's Gate: certainly the nearest quiet rooms. As for her cooking, although she had of course in her time served up for dinner parties of ten or a dozen, when she was with Canon Lyme, she was famous for her small happetising meals too. If Mr. Dabney was only up and dressed we might ask him. Mr. Dabney had the rooms above mine--or, I should say, above those which (as I could see) Naomi intended should be mine in about five minutes--but being a gentleman on the press who kept very late hours, he did not appear till nearly lunch time;--all gentlemen who use their heads, said Mrs. Duckie, needing their full eight hours, if not nine. As for herself, she could do with six or seven; but Duckie wanted his full eight, and had them too, coming as he did from a sleepy stock. She had known him of a Saturday night when he had slep' for a good ten. "I also like to get up late," I said, "but that is owing to my misfortune in being unable to sleep well. I suffer very badly from insomnia." "Yes," said Naomi, "and that is one reason why I brought you first to these rooms, because of the advantage of living over a second-hand bookseller's shop. Don't you see that there will always be something to read? When you can't sleep," she hurried on, "and you are tired of all your own books, as one then is, you have only to get up, light a candle, slip on your dressing-gown" (Naomi's mind is all hopefulness and practical method), "and go down to the shop for as many others as you want. Because of course you will become friends with the bookseller directly. You always do." "All very well; but how if the bookseller only rents the ground floor and basement and lives four miles away in Harringay with the key under his pillow? which as a matter of fact he does, for Mrs.--er--Mrs.--told me so while you were looking at the bathroom. What then, Naomi?"