[_The scene is a large, square room of poverty-stricken, dilapidated appearance, with walls, floor, and ceiling dark in colour, and the back wall broken only by two lofty, curtainless windows through which the outer night shows darkly. Between the windows is a door leading out into the garden. The general effect of the room gives the beholder the impression that, however brilliantly it were lighted, the great, dark expanses of window-pane would still absorb the major portion of the light. To the left is a second door, giving entry to other portions of the Man's mansion. Near this second door there stands a sofa, upholstered in coarse horsehair, while beneath one of the windows there can be seen the Man's working-table--a perfectly plain piece of furniture. Upon it are mingled in careless confusion a dimly burning candle, a shaded lamp, a faded sketch-plan, and three child's toys--namely, a small pasteboard helmet, a wooden horse without a tail, and a red-nosed clown doll, holding cymbals in its hands. To the right is an old bookcase--empty, and almost falling to pieces, but showing, by the lines left in the dust with which its shelves are covered, that the books which it formerly contained have not long been removed. The room contains a single chair._ [_In one corner, darker than the rest of the scene, there stands the Being in Grey. The candle in his hand is now reduced to a stump, and even from this the wax is fast running down as it burns with a red, unsteady light and throws gleams of a ruddy hue over the stony face and chin of the Being._ [_Seated on the solitary chair which the room contains, and talking to herself, is discovered an old woman--the last remaining servant of the Man._] ~The Old Woman.~~ So once again the Man has sunk to poverty! Once upon a time he had many valuable possessions--horses, carriages, even a motor-car; but now he has nothing at all. Of his many servants I am the only one left. True, this room and two others still contain an odd piece or two of furniture, but in the other fifteen apartments there is nothing whatever; they stand dark and empty, and day and night the rats scamper and squeak in them. _Some_ people might be afraid of the rats, but I am not. Nothing matters much to me. For a long while now there has been a notice-board hanging on the entrance-gates, to say that the mansion is for sale; but no one seems to care to be a purchaser. The board has grown rusty with the rain, and the letters on it are fast being washed out, but no customer ever appears. _Who_ would want to buy a house in such repair? Still, some day some one _might_ do so, and then we shall be turned out of doors, I suppose, and have to seek another place in which to lay our heads. At first it will seem strange to us, but we shall soon get used to it. Sometimes my mistress weeps, and my master too, but _I_ never weep. Nothing matters much to me.