Someone who seemed altering the position of chairs and arranging things. He judged it to be the servant who had answered the bell; he considered that it was better to have the thing out now, and have done with it. He wanted a full explanation, and bravely, but with the feelings of a man who is entering a dental parlour, he came to the bath room door. A pale faced, agile-looking young man with glossy black hair, a young man in a sleeved waistcoat, a young man carrying a shirt and set of pink silk undergarments over his left arm, was in the act of placing a pair of patent leather boots with kid tops upon the floor. A gorgeous dressing gown lay upon the bed. It had evidently been placed there by the agile one. Jones had intended to ask explanations. That intention shrivelled, somehow, in the act of speech. What he uttered was a very mildly framed request. "Er--can I have my clothes, please?" said Jones. "Yes, my Lord," replied the other. "I am placing them out." The instantaneous anger raised by the patent fact that he was being guyed by the second apparition was as instantly checked by the recollection of Rochester. Here was another practical joke. This house was evidently Rochester's--the whole thing was plain. Well, he would show that tricky spirit how he could take a joke and turn it on the maker. Like Brer Rabbit he determined to lie low. He withdrew into the bath room and sat down on the rush bottomed chair by the table, his temper coiled, and ready to fly out like a spring. He was seated like this, curling his toes and nursing his resolve, when the Agile One, with an absolute gravity that disarmed all anger, entered with the dressing gown. He stood holding it up, and Jones, rising, put it on. Then the A. O. filled the bath, trying the temperature with a thermometer, and so absorbed in his business that he might have been alone. The bath filled, he left the room, closing the door. He had thrown some crystals into the water, scenting it with a perfume fragrant and refreshing, the temperature was just right, and as Jones plunged and wallowed and lay half floating, supporting himself by the silver plated rails arranged for that purpose, the idea came to him that if the practical joke were to continue as pleasantly as it had begun, he, for one, would not grumble. Soothed by the warmth his mind took a clearer view of things. If this were a jest of Rochester's, as most certainly it was, where lay the heart of it? Every joke has its core, and the core of this one was most evidently the likeness between himself and Rochester.