Passing of the Third Floor Back | Page 9

her?
"Letitia," cried the Colonel, and the tone of his voice surprised her into
silence, "I want you to look closely at our friend. Does he not remind
you of someone?"
Mrs. Devine, so urged, looked at the stranger long and hard. "Yes," she
murmured, turning to her husband, "he does, who is it?"
"I cannot fix it," replied the Colonel; "I thought that maybe you would
remember."
"It will come to me," mused Mrs. Devine. "It is someone--years ago,
when I was a girl--in Devonshire. Thank you, if it isn't troubling you,
Harry. I left it in the dining-room."
It was, as Mr. Augustus Longcord explained to his partner Isidore, the
colossal foolishness of the stranger that was the cause of all the trouble.
"Give me a man, who can take care of himself--or thinks he can,"
declared Augustus Longcord, "and I am prepared to give a good
account of myself. But when a helpless baby refuses even to look at
what you call your figures, tells you that your mere word is sufficient
for him, and hands you over his cheque-book to fill up for
yourself--well, it isn't playing the game."
"Auguthuth," was the curt comment of his partner, "you're a fool."
"All right, my boy, you try," suggested Augustus.
"Jutht what I mean to do," asserted his partner.

"Well," demanded Augustus one evening later, meeting Isidore
ascending the stairs after a long talk with the stranger in the
dining-room with the door shut.
"Oh, don't arth me," retorted Isidore, "thilly ath, thath what he ith."
"What did he say?"
"What did he thay! talked about the Jewth: what a grand rathe they
were--how people mithjudged them: all that thort of rot.
"Thaid thome of the motht honorable men he had ever met had been
Jewth. Thought I wath one of 'em!"
"Well, did you get anything out of him?"
"Get anything out of him. Of courthe not. Couldn't very well thell the
whole rathe, ath it were, for a couple of hundred poundth, after that.
Didn't theem worth it."
There were many things Forty-eight Bloomsbury Square came
gradually to the conclusion were not worth the doing:--Snatching at the
gravy; pouncing out of one's turn upon the vegetables and helping
oneself to more than one's fair share; manoeuvering for the easy-chair;
sitting on the evening paper while pretending not to have seen it--all
such-like tiresome bits of business. For the little one made out of it,
really it was not worth the bother. Grumbling everlastingly at one's
food; grumbling everlastingly at most things; abusing Pennycherry
behind her back; abusing, for a change, one's fellow-boarders;
squabbling with one's fellow-boarders about nothing in particular;
sneering at one's fellow-boarders; talking scandal of one's
fellow-boarders; making senseless jokes about one's fellow-boarders;
talking big about oneself, nobody believing one--all such-like
vulgarities. Other boarding-houses might indulge in them: Forty-eight
Bloomsbury Square had its dignity to consider.
The truth is, Forty-eight Bloomsbury Square was coming to a very
good opinion of itself: for the which not Bloomsbury Square so much
as the stranger must be blamed. The stranger had arrived at Forty-eight
Bloomsbury Square with the preconceived idea--where obtained from
Heaven knows--that its seemingly commonplace, mean-minded,
coarse-fibred occupants were in reality ladies and gentlemen of the first
water; and time and observation had apparently only strengthened this
absurd idea. The natural result was, Forty-eight Bloomsbury Square
was coming round to the stranger's opinion of itself.

Mrs. Pennycherry, the stranger would persist in regarding as a lady
born and bred, compelled by circumstances over which she had no
control to fill an arduous but honorable position of middle-class
society--a sort of foster-mother, to whom were due the thanks and
gratitude of her promiscuous family; and this view of herself Mrs.
Pennycherry now clung to with obstinate conviction. There were
disadvantages attaching, but these Mrs. Pennycherry appeared prepared
to suffer cheerfully. A lady born and bred cannot charge other ladies
and gentlemen for coals and candles they have never burnt; a
foster-mother cannot palm off upon her children New Zealand mutton
for Southdown. A mere lodging-house-keeper can play these tricks, and
pocket the profits. But a lady feels she cannot: Mrs. Pennycherry felt
she no longer could.
To the stranger Miss Kite was a witty and delightful conversationalist
of most attractive personality. Miss Kite had one failing: it was lack of
vanity. She was unaware of her own delicate and refined beauty. If
Miss Kite could only see herself with his, the stranger's eyes, the
modesty that rendered her distrustful of her natural charms would fall
from her. The stranger was so sure of it Miss Kite determined to put it
to the test. One evening, an hour before dinner, there entered the
drawing-room, when the stranger only was there and before the gas was
lighted, a pleasant, good-looking