On returning to the inn, Dr. Riccabocca took the occasion to learn from
the innkeeper (who was indeed a tenant of the squire) such particulars as
he could collect; and a few days afterwards Mr. Hazeldean received a
letter from a solicitor of repute in London, stating that a very
respectable foreign gentleman had commissioned him to treat for Clump
Lodge, otherwise called the "Casino;" that the said gentleman did not
shoot, lived in great seclusion, and, having no family, did not care
about the repairs of the place, provided only it were made weather-
proof,--if the omission of more expensive reparations could render the
rent suitable to his finances, which were very limited. The offer came
at a fortunate moment, when the steward had just been representing to the
squire the necessity of doing something to keep the Casino from falling
into positive ruin, and the squire was cursing the fates which had put
the Casino into an entail--so that he could not pull it down for the
building materials. Mr. Hazeldean therefore caught at the proposal even
as a fair lady, who has refused the best offers in the kingdom, catches,
at last, at some battered old captain on half-pay, and replied that, as
for rent, if the solicitor's client was a quiet, respectable man, he did
not care for that, but that the gentleman might have it for the first
year rent-free, on condition of paying the taxes, and putting the place
a little in order. If they suited each other, they could then come
to terms. Ten days subsequently to this gracious reply, Signor
Riccabocca and his servant arrived; and, before the year's end, the
squire was so contented with his tenant that he gave him a running lease
of seven, fourteen, or twenty-one years, at a rent merely nominal, on
condition that Signor Riccabocca would put and maintain the place in
repair, barring the roof and fences, which the squire generously renewed
at his own expense. It was astonishing, by little and little, what a
pretty place the Italian had made of it, and, what is more astonishing,
how little it had cost him. He had, indeed, painted the walls of the