of that indescribable decay which settles on all the work of man's
hands whenever it's not turned to man's account. The kitchens and
offices were too large, and too remote from each other. Above
stairs and below, waste tracts of passage intervened between
patches of fertility represented by rooms; and there was a mouldy
old well with a green growth upon it, hiding like a murderous trap,
near the bottom of the back-stairs, under the double row of bells.
One of these bells was labelled, on a black ground in faded white
letters, MASTER B. This, they told me, was the bell that rang the
most.

"Who was Master B.?" I asked. "Is it known what he did while the
owl hooted?"

"Rang the bell," said Ikey.

I was rather struck by the prompt dexterity with which this young
man pitched his fur cap at the bell, and rang it himself. It was a
loud, unpleasant bell, and made a very disagreeable sound. The
other bells were inscribed according to the names of the rooms to
which their wires were conducted: as "Picture Room," "Double Room,"
"Clock Room," and the like. Following Master B.'s bell to its
source I found that young gentleman to have had but indifferent
third-class accommodation in a triangular cabin under the cock-
loft, with a corner fireplace which Master B. must have been
exceedingly small if he were ever able to warm himself at, and a
corner chimney-piece like a pyramidal staircase to the ceiling for
Tom Thumb. The papering of one side of the room had dropped down
bodily, with fragments of plaster adhering to it, and almost
blocked up the door. It appeared that Master B., in his spiritual