"No," he said, "no. I think I should like to see what you have
farther up the house, Mrs.--," and then, as if making a prodigious
mental effort, he brought out her name, "Bunting," with a kind of
gasp.

The two top rooms were, of course, immediately above the
drawing-room floor. But they looked poor and mean, owing to the fact
that they were bare of any kind of ornament. Very little trouble had
been taken over their arrangement; in fact, they had been left in much
the same condition as that in which the Buntings had found them.

For the matter of that, it is difficult to make a nice, genteel
sitting-room out of an apartment of which the principal features
are a sink and a big gas stove. The gas stove, of an obsolete
pattern, was fed by a tiresome, shilling-in-the-slot arrangement.
It had been the property of the people from whom the Buntings had
taken over the lease of the house, who, knowing it to be of no
monetary value, had thrown it in among the humble fittings they
had left behind.

What furniture there was in the room was substantial and clean, as
everything belonging to Mrs. Bunting was bound to be, but it was a
bare, uncomfortable-looking place, and the landlady now felt sorry
that she had done nothing to make it appear more attractive.

To her surprise, however, her companion's dark, sensitive,
hatchet-shaped face became irradiated with satisfaction. "Capital!
Capital!" he exclaimed, for the first time putting down the bag he
held at his feet, and rubbing his long, thin hands together with a
quick, nervous movement.