That morning I got up from my breakfast, pushing the chair back, and
rang the bell violently, or perhaps I should say resolutely, or perhaps
I should say eagerly, I do not know. But manifestly it must have been
a special ring of the bell, a common sound made impressive, like the
ringing of a bell for the raising of the curtain upon a new scene.
It was an unusual thing for me to do. Generally, I dawdled over my
breakfast and I solemn took the trouble to ring the bell for the table
to be cleared away; but on that morning for some reason hidden in the
general mysteriousness of the event I did not dawdle. And yet I was
not in a hurry. I pulled the cord casually and while the faint tinkling
somewhere down in the basement went on, I charged my pipe in the usual
way and I looked for the matchbox with glances distraught indeed but
exhibiting, I am ready to swear, no signs of a fine frenzy. I was
composed enough to perceive after some considerable time the matchbox
lying there on the mantelpiece right under my nose. And all this was
beautifully and safely usual. Before I had thrown down the match my
landlady's daughter appeared with her calm, pale face and an inquisitive
look, in the doorway. Of late it was the landlady's daughter who
answered my bell. I mention this little fact with pride, because it
proves that during the thirty or forty days of my tenancy I had produced
a favourable impression. For a fortnight past I had been spared the
unattractive sight of the domestic slave. The girls in that Bessborough
Gardens house were often changed, but whether short or long, fair or
dark, they were always untidy and particularly bedraggled as if in a
sordid version of the fairy tale the ashbin cat had been changed into a
maid. I was infinitely sensible of the privilege of being waited on by
my landlady's daughter. She was neat if anaemic.

"Will you please clear away all this at once?" I addressed her in
convulsive accents, being at the same time engaged in getting my pipe