"I had enough trouble to get them to light it," remarked the valet in a resentful tone. "If it hadn't been for a jack-tar with big whiskers I found down in the hall it wouldn't be done yet. He came up from the ship with one of these sea officers downstairs. He drove the fellows with the wood in fine style up here for me. He knows the people here. He cursed them each separately by their Christian names, and then had a glass of wine in the kitchen with me." Meantime Signor Cantelucci, wearing the aspect of a deaf man, had lighted, on two separate tables, two clusters of candles which drove the restless gloom of the large apartment half way up to the ceiling, and retired with noiseless footsteps. He stopped in the doorway to cast a keen glance at the master and the man standing by the fire. Those two turned their heads only at the sound of the closing door. "I couldn't think what became of you, sir. I was getting quite worried about you. You disappeared without saying anything to me." "I went for a walk down to the sea," said Cosmo while the man moved off to where several cowhide trunks were ranged against the wall. "I like to take a look round on arriving at a new place." "Yes, sir; but when it got dark I wondered." "I tarried on a tower to watch the sunset," murmured Cosmo. "I have been doing some unpacking," said the servant, "but not knowing how long you mean to stay . . ." "It may be a long stay." "Then I will go on, sir; that is if you are going to keep this room." "Yes. The room will do. Spire. It's big enough." Spire took up one of the two candelabras and retired into the neighbourhood of a sort of state bed heavily draped at the other end of the room. There, throwing open the trunks and the doors of closets, he busied himself systematically, without noise, till he heard the quiet voice of his young master. "Spire." "Yes, sir," he answered, standing still with a pile of shirts on his arm. "Is this inn very full?" "Yes, very," said Spire. "The whole town is full of travellers and people from the country. A lot of our nobility and gentry are passing this way." He deposited the shirts on a shelf in the depths of the wall and turned round again. "Have you heard any names, Spire?" Spire stooped over a trunk and lifted up from it carefully a lot of white neckcloths folded neatly one within the other. "I haven't had much time yet, sir. I heard a few." He laid down the neckcloths by the side of the shirts while Cosmo, with his elbow on the mantelpiece, asked down the whole length of the room: "Anybody I know?"