melancholy little sitting-room to await her appearance.

"I shall be 'almost' blind here, Parkinson," remarked Carrados,
walking about the room. "It saves explanation."

"Very good, sir," replied Parkinson.

Five minutes later, an interval suggesting that Miss Chubb also found
it rather early in the afternoon, Carrados was arranging to take rooms
for his attendant and himself for the short time that he would be in
London, seeing an oculist.

"One bedroom, mine, must face north," he stipulated. "It has to do
with the light."

Miss Chubb replied that she quite understood. Some gentlemen, she
added, had their requirements, others their fancies. She endeavoured
to suit all. The bedroom she had in view from the first _did_ face
north. She would not have known, only the last gentleman, curiously
enough, had made the same request.

"A sufferer like myself?" inquired Carrados affably.

Miss Chubb did not think so. In his case she regarded it merely as a
fancy. He had said that he could not sleep on any other side. She had
had to turn out of her own room to accommodate him, but if one kept an
apartment-house one had to be adaptable; and Mr. Ghoosh was certainly
very liberal in his ideas.

"Ghoosh? An Indian gentleman, I presume?" hazarded Carrados.