Close by the station Paul detected a comfortable-looking inn, into which inn he and Mrs. Dibble directed their steps--not that Mrs. Dibble approved of inns, for she did not, as she told Paul over and over again, although in the course of business her father had been called upon to build several establishments of the kind, and the specifications had gone through her hands; but no doubt they were necessary sometimes, and she thought they were justified in taking up their abode at one, and having something hot and some tea at this inn in particular, and on the shortest possible notice; so Paul ordered the refreshment whilst Mrs. Dibble, struggling under a load of shawls and comforters and rugs, was shown to her room. If Mrs. Dibble had had the smallest compunction about entering the railway tavern, she had no hesitation about the chops and the tea and the muffins and watercress, which she was liberal enough to commend, giving very practical illustrations of her approval of the fare, and all the time talking of her poor appetite, and telling Paul how seriously Mr. Dibble’s conduct had injured her health. She became so confidential upon this point, and at length felt herself so much at home that she permitted the hooks-and-eyes nearest her chin to disengage themselves, and insisted upon Paul joining her in just sixpenny-worth of spirits-and-water before they ventured out in the cold to discover the yard by the Blue Posts Inn. The spirits-and-water made them both very warm and comfortable, and Paul at length offered his arm to his companion, and away they started towards the point indicated. It was a damp, drizzling night, and there were treacherous holes here and there in the path which Mrs. Dibble assured Paul were in the highest degree uncomfortable. She was sure her stockings would be that splashed that they would not be fit to be seen. Severntown did not look at all inviting in the hazy light of the December gas; but Paul knew the place, and redeemed its character to some extent by telling Mrs. Dibble that they were in the back slums, which she said she could readily understand. Through dirty streets, with one or two bridges over black, murky water; past lazy carts and rumbling cabs splashing through the mud; by narrow footways, which were sometimes no footways at all; it was certainly no pleasant route to the Blue Posts. At length, however, they came to a fine, open, well-lit street, and after walking a short distance in this brighter locality, they turned sharply round into a narrow passage, and then emerged into an open, muddy square. Here was situated Digby Martin’s Temple of Magic, and Mrs. Dibble and Paul stopped to study the scene before them.