The room in which Haskins and Macandrew sat at dinner was small, with a low ceiling, and one inefficient window smothered with curtains. It was crowded with Early Victorian furniture of the most cumbersome and inelegant description. Table and chairs, sofa and sideboard, bookcase and desk were all of solid mahogany, deposited on a flowery Kidderminster carpet, somewhat worn. Antimacassars adorned the horsehair chairs, wax fruit under a glass shade embellished the sideboard, and green glass ornaments, with dangling prisms, appeared on either side of the black marble clock which disfigured the mantelpiece. On the faded pattern of a Prussian blue wall-paper were steel engravings representing "The Death of Nelson" and the "Meeting of Wellington and Blucher after Waterloo," together with colored hunting scenes and illustrations from "The Book of Beauty," and "The Keepsake." There were also samplers, and a fender-stool, and a canary in a gilt cage, and a cupboard of inferior china, and two screens of worsted-work representing parrots and macaws. The apartment was stuffy and unwholesome, and more like a curiosity-shop than a place to dine in. The young men had changed to easy smoking suits, and were doing full justice to an admirable meal, consisting of roast beef with vegetables, superfine apple pie, Devonshire cream, and first-rate Stilton. They drank cider out of compliment to the county, and knew that when eating was at an end two fragrant cups of coffee would add to the enjoyment of their after-dinner pipes. And this satisfactory state of things was presided over by a stout and genial waiter, who was as black as the dress clothes he wore in honor of the guests. A bull in a china-shop would not have seemed much more out of keeping than was this negro in the heart of the Devon hills. How he had drifted into such a locality heaven only knows, but he appeared exotic and strange, like some tropical bird which had flown from Equatorial Regions to make a nest in cool, gray, misty England. Adonis Geary was the incongruous name of the man, and he was at once landlord and waiter. Save that he possessed but one eye there was nothing unpleasant in his looks, and from his constant smiling and ready service he appeared to be of an amiable disposition. For over fifteen years--so he told his guests--he had owned the inn, and also had married a six-foot girl from Barnstaple, who was as meek as she was tall. This oddly-matched pair had five or six coffee-colored children, who tumbled about the small house and made it lively. The _ménage_ was unusual, to say least of it, and like the inn itself. The presence of the negro hinted at romance and mystery.