a mixture of several breeds--Bim belonged to Brown, and to Brown's
immediate environment, whenever Bim himself was able to accomplish it.
When he was not able he was accustomed to wait patiently outside the door
of Brown's small bachelor abode. This door opened directly from the
street into the Brown Study.

The really curious thing about the study was that nobody in that quarter
of the big city knew it was a study. They called the place simply
"_Brown's_." Who Brown himself was they did not know, either. He had
come to live in the little old house about a year ago. He was dressed so
plainly, and everything about him, including his manner, was of such an
unobtrusive simplicity, that he attracted little attention--at first.
Soon his immediate neighbours were on terms of interested
acquaintanceship with him, though how they got there they could not
themselves have told--it had never occurred to them to wonder. The thing
had come about naturally, somehow. Presently others besides his immediate
neighbours knew Brown, had become friends of Brown. They never wondered
how it had happened.

The Brown Study had many callers. It was by now thoroughly used to them,
for it had all sorts, every day of the month, at any hour of the day, at
almost any hour of the night.




II

BROWN'S CALLER--ONE OF MANY