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‘Can you tell me how these houses come to be in this neglected state?’

The stranger smiled; a soft, modest, deferential smile such as became his countenance, and spoke in a corresponding voice, which had a vaguely provincial accent.

‘No wonder it surprises you, sir. I should be surprised myself. It comes of quarrels and lawsuits.’

‘So I supposed. Do you know who the property belongs to?’

‘Well, yes, sir. The fact is–it belongs to me.’

The avowal was made apologetically, and yet with a certain timid pride. Goldthorpe exhibited all the interest he felt. An idea had suddenly sprung up in his mind; he met the stranger’s look, and spoke with the easy good-humour natural to him.

‘It seems a great pity that houses should be standing empty like that. Are they quite uninhabitable? Couldn’t one camp here during this fine summer weather? To tell you the truth, I’m looking for a room–as cheap a room as I can get. Could you let me one for the next three months?’

The stranger was astonished. He regarded the young man with an uneasy smile.

‘You are joking, sir.’

‘Not a bit of it. Is the thing quite impossible? Are all the rooms in too bad a state?’

‘I won’t say that,’ replied the other cautiously, still eyeing his interlocutor with surprised glances. ‘The upper rooms are really not so bad–that is to say, from a humble point of view. I–I have been looking at them just now. You really mean, sir–?’

‘I’m quite in earnest, I assure you,’ cried Goldthorpe cheerily. ‘You see I’m tolerably well dressed still, but I’ve precious little money, and I want to eke out the little I’ve got for about three months. I’m writing a book. I think I shall manage to sell it when it’s done, but it’ll take me about three months yet. I don’t care what sort of place I live in, so long as it’s quiet. Couldn’t we come to terms?’

The listener’s visage seemed to grow rounder in progressive astonishment; his eyes declared an emotion akin to awe; his little mouth shaped itself as if about to whistle.

‘A book, sir? You are writing a book? You are a literary man?’

‘Well, a beginner. I have poverty on my side, you see.’

‘Why, it’s like Dr. Johnson!’ cried the other, his face glowing with interest. ‘It’s like Chatterton!–though I’m sure I hope you won’t end like him, sir. It’s like Goldsmith!–indeed it is!’

‘I’ve got half Oliver’s name, at all events,’ laughed the young man. ‘Mine is Goldthorpe.’

‘You don’t say so, sir! What a strange coincidence! Mine, sir, is Spicer. I–I don’t know whether you’d care to come into my garden? We might talk there–‘

In a minute or two they were standing amid the green jungle, which Goldthorpe viewed with delight. He declared it the most picturesque garden he had ever seen.

‘Why, there are potatoes growing there. And what are those things? Jerusalem artichokes? And look at that magnificent thistle; I never saw a finer thistle in my life! And poppies–and marigolds–and broad-beans–and isn’t that lettuce?’

Mr. Spicer was red with gratification.

‘I feel that something might be done with the garden, sir,’ he said. ‘The fact is, sir, I’ve only lately come into this property, and I’m sorry to say it’ll only be mine for a little more than a year–a year from next midsummer day, sir. There’s the explanation of what you see. It’s leasehold property, and the lease is just coming to its end. Five years ago, sir, an uncle of mine inherited the property from his brother. The houses were then in a very bad state, and only one of them let, and there had been lawsuits going on for a long time between the leaseholder and the ground-landlord–I can’t quite understand these matters, they’re not at all in my line, sir; but at all events there were quarrels and lawsuits, and I’m told one of the tenants was somehow mixed up in it. The fact is, my uncle wasn’t a very well-to-do man, and perhaps he didn’t feel able to repair the houses, especially as the lease was drawing to its end. Would you like to go in and have a look round?’