Bram went up cautiously to old Mrs. Fuller’s room. She was seventy now, but still able to hate fiercely her octogenarian husband who was for ever browsing among dusty commentaries on the Old Testament nowadays, and extracting from the tortuous fretwork of bookworms such indications of the Divine purpose as the exact date and hour of the Day of Judgment. He was usually clad in a moth-eaten velveteen dressing-gown and a smoking cap of quilted black silk with a draggled crimson tassel. The latter must have been worn as a protection to his bald and scaly head, because not a puff of tobacco smoke had ever been allowed to contend with the odour of stale food that permeated Lebanon House from cellar to garret. The old lady was sitting by the fire in her rococo parlour, reading Alphonse Daudet’s new book. Her hawk’s face seemed to be not so much wrinkled as finely cracked like old ivory. Over her shoulders she wore a wrap of rose and silver brocade. “Why, Bram, I thought you were entertaining visitors this afternoon.” “I am. He’s downstairs in the schoolroom. Jack Fleming, I mean.” “Is that a son of that foxy-faced solicitor in High Street?” Bram nodded. “But Jack’s rather decent. I think you’d like him, grandmamma.” “Ah, I’m too old to begin liking new people.” Bram kicked his legs together, trying to make up his mind what line to adopt for enlisting the old lady’s sympathy. “Blundell’s Diorama is here,” he announced at last. “What’s that? A new disease?” The boy laughed. “It does sound rather like a disease, doesn’t it? No, it’s the same sort of thing as Poole’s Myriorama.” “I’m no wiser.” “Well, it’s a set of large coloured pictures of places in foreign parts. And there are some singers with guitars. Italian perhaps.” Ah, cunning Bram! “Italian, eh? And you want to gaze into their liquid and passionate orbs, eh?” “I would rather like to—only as a matter of fact I haven’t got any chink. Caleb lent me some, but he won’t lend me any more till I pay him back. I’ve had to give him my best bat till I do.” “How much do you owe the little alligator?” “Two and threepence halfpenny, and sixpence interest up to date, and twopence for the linseed oil for oiling the bat, because he said he’d have to keep it in good condition during the winter. Two and elevenpence halfpenny altogether.” Mrs. Fuller grunted. “And anyway papa won’t let me go down into Brigham unless I can get a good excuse.” “And so you want an excuse from me? _Ho capito._ Well, Bram, it’s a strange thing, but my rheumatism has suddenly become very bad and I’d be much obliged if you’d go down into Brigham and buy me a bottle of embrocation. Here’s five shillings. I don’t want the change. St. Jumbo’s Oil is the name of the embrocation. It’ll probably take you all the evening to find it, and if you don’t find it I shan’t really mind, because my rheumatism is bound to be much better by the time you come back.” “I say, grandmamma, you are ... you are....”