then that among the attenuated spinsters of Halma House his grossness seemed nothing more than a ruddy well-being and that his utter indifference to any kind of responsibility acquired the characteristics of a ripe geniality. Halma House, Earl's Court Square, was a very large boarding-house, so large that Miss Moxley, the most attenuated spinster who lived in it, once declared that it was more like a residential hotel than a boarding-house, a theory that was eagerly supported by all the other attenuated spinsters who clung to its overstuffed furniture or like dusty cobwebs floated about its garish saloons. Halma House was indeed two houses squeezed or knocked (or whatever other uncomfortable verb can be found to express the welding) into one. Above the front-door of number 198 were the large gilt letters that composed HALMA: above the front-door of what was once number 200 the equally large gilt letters that made up HOUSE. The division between the front-door steps had been removed so as to give an almost Medician grandeur to the entrance, at the top of which beneath a folded awning a curved garden-seat against the disused door of number 20 suggested that it was the resort for the intimate gayety of the boarders at the close of a fine summer day; as Miss Moxley used to vow, it was really quite an oasis, with the plane-trees of the square for contemplation not to mention the noising of the sparrows and the distant tinkling of milk-cans, quite an oasis in dingy old London. But then Miss Moxley had the early symptoms of exophthalmus, a malady that often accompanies the poetic temperament; Miss Moxley, fluttering out for five minutes' fresh air before dinner on a gentle eve in early June, was capable of idealizing to the semblance of a careless pastoral group the spectacle of a half-pay major, a portly widow or two up from the country, and George Touchwood, all brushing the smuts from their noses while they gossiped together on that seat: this was by no means too much for her exophthalmic vision. John's arrival at Halma House in raw November was not greeted by such evidence of communal felicity; on the contrary, when he walked up the steps, the garden-seat looked most defiantly uninviting; nor did the entrance hall with its writhing gilt furniture symbolize anything more romantic than the competitive pretentiousness of life in a boarding-house that was almost a residential hotel. A blond waiter whose hair would have been dishevelled but for the uses of perspiration informed him that Mr. Tooshvood was in his sitting-room, and led him to a door at the end of the hall opposite another door that gave descent to the dungeons of supply, the inmates of which seemed to spend their time in throwing dishes at one another.