“Klein,” said the other, in a meditative tone. “He took it for three months,” went on Gristlethwaite. “Paid in advance. He brought some sticks of furniture from Penrith; he’s an ill-looking chap, but his money is good; half-cracked I should think, coming here this time of year.” “He didn’t give you any references.” “No, he paid in advance; I was in two minds about letting him have the place, but since old Lewthwaite’s death it has been lying idle and going to pieces.” “Did you have any conversation with him?” “Yes, sir,” said Gristlethwaite, “and his talk struck me as a bit daft. I cannot remember all he said, but I remember he told he me had lived in Paris and had seen you there.” “What else did he say, try and think. I saw the fellow this evening sketching the stones, and I don’t like the look of him; one never knows in these days what burglars are about.” “Oh, I don’t think he’s anything of that sort,” replied the other, “and I can’t very well remember the words he said, except that he was reckoned a great artist and that he had come down here to complete his masterpiece.” Sir Anthony made that movement of the shoulders of a person who, to use a vulgar expression, feels a goose walking upon his grave. “Well,” he said. “I suppose he has taken the cottage, and we can’t turn him out.” Then he went on conversing about the drainage, at the exact point where he had left off, as though Klein, the cottage, and the masterpiece were things of no account. At ten Gristlethwaite departed. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ CHAPTER VII THE next morning’s post brought some fifty or so letters to Throstle Hall, forwarded on from London. Letters from Russia, letters from Japan, letters from Paris, Constantinople and Madrid; bills, circulars, lottery announcements, touting letters, begging letters, letters from lunatics, financiers, friends, politicians and enemies. It was a post the receipt of which would have driven an ordinary man to distraction, but it did not distract Sir Anthony Gyde. He reviewed them sitting up in bed propped up with pillows, a cup of tea by his side and his correspondence spread upon the coverlet. He sorted them by the simple process of casting them upon the floor, some on the right, some on the left. The ones on the right went to the waste-paper basket, the ones on the left to his secretary. He had nearly finished, when he came upon an envelope thin and narrow, poverty stricken, stamped in the left-hand corner as if in defiance of convention and addressed in a handwriting unique, in that it managed to be both prim and fantastic. There are letters, men, streets, and numerous other things in this life, that produce upon the mind of the person who sees them for the first time, an impression to be summed up in the one word—Bad.