After five minutes' walk in a silence which John Gaffekin somehow did not wish to break they arrived outside the little square brick house which was dark, silent and shuttered fast. In front of it the last gas-lamp in Blaindon glimmered in the wind-driven moon-rays. "Call the old man," ordered the Poet. John Gaffekin banged violently at the door and shouted: "Mr Price! Mr Price!" "Eh, what's up the deuce and all?" came a loud but sleepy voice from the first floor. A match was struck, a light glimmered through the bars, the shutters creaked open and old Mr Price popped his nightcap out of the window. "News from your son," cried the Poet cheerfully. "Eh, is that anything to jump a man up for in the dead o' night?" retorted the old man, cursing under his breath. "I was feared of a smoky black beggaring fire at the least, I was. What the devil do I care about the young rip? He owes me a hundred pound, he do, and I wrote him, but he never sent back a penny nor a post-card." "You're a nice, pretty father," exclaimed the Poet. "I've got your hundred in my pocket." "I'll come down to you and Mr Gaffekin," said William Price very civilly. "No you won't," retorted the Poet, "you should have come down before. You'll stay right where you are and answer me some questions I have in my head to ask you. And if you budge from that window you sha'n't have a groat nor a tizzy of all your hundred pounds." "It's cold-here," grumbled Mr Price, churlishly, flapping his arms across his chest. "What d'yer want to know?" "Why, first of all, tell me why you never go out of nights?" cried the Poet. "What's that to you?" bawled back the old man. "And tell me, tell me, William Price, who was the mother of your son?" the Poet shouted. "What in Hell or under it is that to you?" came in very full-throated accents from the open window. "Why is your bedstead all made of wood?" thundered the relentless Poet in stentorian tones. "Hey, stop that!" cried the voice from the window. But the Poet continued his questions unperturbed. "Why have you half forgotten your own son, William Price? Why do you sleep all day, Father William, and pretend to be more stupid than the grave? Do you think a Poet cannot see through the film you cast over your happy eyes?" "Eh, what are you driving at?" exclaimed Sir Price in a voice no longer angry but rather tremulous. "Who are your guests to-night, old man, who are your guests to-night?" yelled the Poet, positively dancing with malicious satisfaction. "Why, be you one of them that know?" cried the old man in a new tone of something like awe and something like fellowship. "I am one of the chief of those that know," replied the Poet; "for me shutters unbar, for me the music pipes, and even my companion for all he can wrap his soul up in the wisdom of Oxford town shall see the fairies haunting. "_What_!" said John.