were curtained with red cloth. The window, wider than it was high, was
also curtained with red cloth. The walls, papered in a saffron tint,
bore framed advertisements and a few photographs of self-conscious
persons. The ceiling was as obscure as heaven; the floor tiled, with a
list rug in front of the steel fender.

I put my overcoat on the sofa, picked up the candle and glanced at the
books in the corner: Lavater's indestructible work, a paper-covered
_Whitaker_, the _Licensed Victuallers' Almanac, Johnny Ludlow_, the
illustrated catalogue of the Exhibition of 1856, _Cruden's Concordance_,
and seven or eight volumes of _Knight's Penny Encyclopædia_. While I was
poring on these titles I heard movements overhead--previously there had
been no sound whatever--and with guilty haste I restored the candle to
the table and placed myself negligently in front of the fire.

"Now don't let me see ye up here any more till I fetch ye!" said a
woman's distant voice--not crossly, but firmly. And then, crossly: "Be
off with ye now!"

Reluctant boots on the stairs! Jos Myatt entered to me. He did not speak
at first; nor did I. He avoided my glance. He was still wearing the
cut-away coat with the line of mud up the back. I took out my watch, not
for the sake of information, but from mere nervousness, and the sight of
the watch reminded me that it would be prudent to wind it up.

"Better not forget that," I said, winding it.

"Ay!" said he, gloomily. "It's a tip." And he wound up his watch; a
large, thick, golden one.