thrive very well."

"What beautifully delicate brass-work!" cried Robert, looking up with
admiring eyes at the bright and infinitely fragile metal trellis screens
which adorned the spaces between the Moorish arches.

"It is rather neat. But it is not brass-work. Brass is not tough
enough to allow them to work it to that degree of fineness. It is gold.
But just come this way with me. You won't mind waiting while I remove
this smoke?"

He led the way to a door upon the left side of the court, which, to
Robert's surprise, swung slowly open as they approached it.
"That is a little improvement which I have adopted," remarked the master
of the house. "As you go up to a door your weight upon the planks
releases a spring which causes the hinges to revolve. Pray step in.
This is my own little sanctum, and furnished after my own heart."

If Robert expected to see some fresh exhibition of wealth and luxury he
was woefully disappointed, for he found himself in a large but bare
room, with a little iron truckle-bed in one corner, a few scattered
wooden chairs, a dingy carpet, and a large table heaped with books,
bottles, papers, and all the other _debris_ which collect around a busy
and untidy man. Motioning his visitor into a chair, Raffles Haw pulled
off his coat, and, turning up the sleeves of his coarse flannel
shirt, he began to plunge and scrub in the warm water which flowed from
a tap in the wall.

"You see how simple my own tastes are," he remarked, as he mopped his
dripping face and hair with the towel. "This is the only room in my