facts in my possession."

He glanced round the sitting-room, which we had now entered, and
continued:

"These are fine, dignified old rooms. It seems a sin to have covered up
all this oak panelling and that carved cornice and mantel with paint.
Think what it must have been like when the beautiful figured wood was
exposed."

"It would be very dark," Stephen observed.

"Yes," Thorndyke agreed, "and I suppose we care more for light and less
for beauty than our ancestors did. But now, tell me; looking round these
rooms, do they convey to you a similar impression to that which the old
rooms did? Have they the same general character?"

"Not quite, I think. Of course the rooms in Jermyn Street were in a
different kind of house, but beyond that, I seem to feel a certain
difference; which is rather odd, seeing that the furniture is the same.
But the old rooms were more cosy, more homelike. I find something rather
bare and cheerless, I was almost going to say squalid, in the look of
these chambers."

"That is rather what I should have expected," said Thorndyke. "The opium
habit alters a man's character profoundly; and, somehow, apart from the
mere furnishing, a room reflects in some subtle way, but very
distinctly, the personality of its occupant, especially when that
occupant lives a solitary life. Do you see any evidences of the
activities that used to occupy your uncle?"