"It can't be, of course." said Richard, getting impatient. "Mr Took, my last lodger, sir, played the rumboon; and sometimes of a morning, when he was doing his octaves, it used to quite make my brain buzz." "I think the rooms would suit me," said Richard, glancing round. "Thank you, sir," said Mrs Fiddison, wiping one eye with a scrap of crape. "You can see the marks all over the wall now." "Marks--wall?" said Richard. "Ah, you don't understand the rumboon, sir," said Mrs Fiddison, pointing with a pair of scissors to various little dents and scratches on the wall, as she still held up the widow's cap. "Those places are what he used to make when he shot the thing out to get his low notes-- doing his octaves, sir." "Indeed," said Richard, recalling the action of the trombone player in the marine band on board his last ship. "Perhaps you'd like to see the bedroom, sir?" "Would you mind seeing that for me, Mrs Jenkles?" said Richard. "It's plain, sir, but everything at Mrs Fiddison's here is as clean as hands can make it," said Mrs Jenkles, glancing from one to the other. "Then it will do," said Richard. "And the terms?" "Seven shillings my last lodger paid me, sir," said Mrs Fiddison, drooping more and more, and evidently now much impressed by one of Richard's boots. "I did hope to get seven and six for them now, as there's a new table-cover." Richard glanced at the new cotton check on the table. "Then I'll pay you seven and sixpence," he said. "The last being full of holes he made when smoking," said Mrs Fiddison. "Then that's settled," said Richard. "Mrs--Mrs--" "Jenkles, sir," said the cabman's wife, smiling. "Mrs Jenkles, I'm much obliged to you for your trouble," he said. "And so am I," said Mrs Fiddison, removing a tear once more with a scrap of crape. "My dear," she continued, fixing a band to the cap, and holding it out--"isn't that sweet!" Mrs Jenkles nodded. "I think the gentleman wants the rooms at once," she said, glancing at Richard. "Yes, that I do," he replied. "I'll fetch my portmanteau over directly." "Oh, dear!" ejaculated Mrs Fiddison--"so soon." And with some show of haste, she took a widow's cap off a painted plaster Milton on the chimneypiece, another from Shakespeare, and revealed, by the removal of a third, the celebrated Highland laddie, in blue and red porcelain, taking leave of a green Highland lass, with a china sheep sticking to one of her unstockinged legs. Half an hour after, Richard was sitting by the open window, looking across the street at where a thin, white hand was busy watering the fuchsias and geraniums in the window, and from time to time he caught a glimpse of Netta's sweet, sad face.