Then he reappeared with an extended hand. "Well, how are you?" he said.
"I was never so surprised in my life. Fancy!... You!"

He shook my mother's impassive hand and then mine very warmly holding
his glasses on with his left forefinger.

"Come right in!" he cried--"come right in! Better late than never!" and
led the way into the parlour behind the shop.

After Bladesover that apartment struck me as stuffy and petty, but it
was very comfortable in comparison with the Frapp living-room. It had
a faint, disintegrating smell of meals about it, and my most immediate
impression was of the remarkable fact that something was hung about
or wrapped round or draped over everything. There was bright-patterned
muslin round the gas-bracket in the middle of the room, round the mirror
over the mantel, stuff with ball-fringe along the mantel and casing in
the fireplace,--I first saw ball-fringe here--and even the lamp on the
little bureau wore a shade like a large muslin hat. The table-cloth had
ball-fringe and so had the window curtains, and the carpet was a bed of
roses. There were little cupboards on either side of the fireplace, and
in the recesses, ill-made shelves packed with books, and enriched with
pinked American cloth. There was a dictionary lying face downward on
the table, and the open bureau was littered with foolscap paper and
the evidences of recently abandoned toil. My eye caught "The Ponderevo
Patent Flat, a Machine you can Live in," written in large firm letters.
My uncle opened a little door like a cupboard door in the corner of this
room, and revealed the narrowest twist of staircase I had ever set
eyes upon. "Susan!" he bawled again. "Wantje. Some one to see you.
Surprisin'."