"Signor Rastelli," said Mr. Zanti, and the languid gentleman shook hands with Peter as though he were conferring a great benefit upon him and he hoped Peter wouldn't forget it.

"Zis," said Mr. Zanti, "is my young friend, Peter Westcott, whom I love as if 'e were my own son--Signor Rastelli," he continued, turning to Peter, "I've known him for very many years and I can only say zat ze longer I 'ave known him ze more admirable I 'ave thought 'im."

The gentleman took off his tall hat, stroked it, put it on again and looked, with his languid eyes, at Peter.

"And," continued Mr. Zanti, cheerfully, conscious perhaps that he was carrying all the conversation on his own shoulders, "'e will take you to a 'ouse where 'e has been for--'ow many years, Signor?"

"Ten," said that gentleman.

"For ten years--every comfort. Zere's a little room 'e tells me where you will be 'appy--and all your food and friendship for one pound a week. There!" he ended triumphantly.

"Thank you very much," said Peter, but he did not altogether like the look of the seedily dressed gentleman, and would much rather have stayed with Mr. Zanti.

He had packed his black bag in readiness, and now he fetched it and, after promising to be in the shop at half-past eight the next morning, started off with his melancholy guide.

The lamps were coming out, and a silence that often falls upon London just before sunset had come down upon the traffic and the people.

Windows caught the departing flame, held it for an instant, and sank into grey twilight.

"I know what you're thinking about me," Peter's companion suddenly said (he was walking very fast as though trying to catch something), "I know you don't like me. I could see it at once--I never make a mistake about those things. You were saying to yourself: 'What does that horrible, over-dressed stranger want to come interfering with me for?'"

"Indeed, I wasn't," said Peter, breathlessly, because the bag was so heavy and they were walking so fast.

"Oh, yes, you were. Never mind. I'm not a popular man, and when you know me better you'll like me still less. That's always the way I affect people. And always with the best intentions. And you were thinking, too, that you never saw anything less Italian than I am, and you're sure my name's Brown or Smith, and indeed it's true that I was born in Clapham, but my parents were Italians--refugees, you know, although I'm sure I don't know what from--and every one calls me the Signor, and so there you are--and I don't see how I'm to help it. But that's just me all over--always fighting against the tide but I don't complain, I'm sure."

All this said very rapidly and in a melancholy way as though tears were not very far off. Then he suddenly added:

"Let me carry your bag for you."

"No, thank you," said Peter, laughing, "I can manage it."

"Ah, well, you look strong," said the Signor appreciatively. "I envy you, I'm sure--never had a day's health myself--but I don't complain."

By this time they had passed the British Museum and were entering into the shadows of Bloomsbury. At this hour, when the lamps and the stars are coming out, and the sun is going in, Bloomsbury has an air of melancholy that is peculiarly its own. The dark grey houses stand as a perpetual witness of those people that have found life too hard for them and have been compelled to give in. The streets of those melancholy squares seen beneath flickering lamp light and a wan moon protest against all gaiety of spirit and urge resignation and a mournful acquiescence. Bloomsbury is Life on Thirty Shillings a week without the drama of starvation or the tragedy of the Embankment, but with all the ignominy of making ends meet under the stern and relentless eye of a boarding-house keeper.

But of all the sad and unhappy squares in Bloomsbury the saddest is Bennett Square. It is shut in by all the other Bloomsbury Squares and is further than any of them from the lights and traffic of popular streets.

There are only four lamp posts there--one at each corner--and between these patches of light everything is darkness and desolation.

Every house in Bennett Square is a boarding-house, and No. 72 is Brockett's.

"Mrs. Brockett is a very terrifying but lovable woman," said the Signor darkly, and Peter, whose spirits had sunk lower and ever lower as he stumbled through the dark streets, felt, at the sound of this threatening prophecy, entirely miserable.

No. 72 is certainly the grimiest of the houses in Bennett Square. It is tall and built of that grey stone that takes the mind of the observer back to those school precincts of his youth. It is a thin house, not broad and fat and comfortably bulging, but rather flinging a spiteful glance at the house that squeezed it in on either side. It is like a soured, elderly caustic old maid, unhappy in its own experiences and determined to make every one else unhappy in theirs. Peter, of course, did not see these things, because it was very dark, but he wished he had not come.

The Signor had a key of his own and Peter was soon inside a hall that smelt of oilcloth and the cooking of beef; the gas was burning, but the only things that really benefited from its light were a long row of mournful black coats that hung against the wall.

Peter sneezed, and was suddenly conscious of an enormous woman whom he knew by instinct to be Mrs. Brockett. She was truly enormous--she stood facing him like some avenging Fate. She had the body of a man--flat, straight, broad. Her black hair, carefully parted down the middle, was brushed back and bound into hard black coils low down over the neck. She stood there, looking down on them, her arms akimbo, her legs apart. Her eyes were black and deep set, her cheek bones very prominent, her nose thin and sharp; her black dress caught in a little at the waist, fell otherwise in straight folds to her feet. There was a faint moustache on her upper lip, her hands, with long white slender fingers, were beautiful, lying straight by her side, against the stuff of her dress.

"Well?" she said--and her voice was deep like a man's. "Good evening, Signor."

"Good evening, Madame." He took off his hat and gave her a deep bow.

"This is the young gentleman, Mr. Westcott, of whom I spoke to you this morning."

"Well--how are you, Mr. Westcott?" Her words were sharply clipped and had the resonance of coins as they rang in the air.

"Quite well, thank you," said Peter, and he noticed, in spite of his dismay at her appearance, that the clasp of her hand was strong and friendly.

"Florence will show you your room, Mr. Westcott. It is a pound a week including your meals and attendance and the use of the general sitting-room. If you do not like it you must tell me and we will wish one another good evening. If you do like it I shall do my best to make you comfortable."

Peter found afterwards that this was her invariable manner of addressing a new-comer. It could scarcely be called a warm welcome. She turned and called, "Florence!" and a maid-servant, diminutive in size but spotless in appearance, suddenly appeared from nowhere at all, as it seemed to Peter.

He followed this girl up many flights of stairs. On every side of him were doors and, once and again, gas flared above him. It was all very cold, and gusts of wind passed up and down, whisking in and out of the oilcloth, and Peter thought that he had never seen so many closed doors in his life.

At last they came to an end of the stairs and there with a skylight covering the passage outside was his room. It was certainly small and the window looked out on a dismal little piece of garden far below and a great number of roofs and chimneys and at last a high dome rising like a black cloud in the farther distance. It was spotlessly clean.

"I think it will do very well, thank you," said Peter and he put down his black bag.

"Do you?" said the maid. "There's a bell," she said, pointing, "and the meal's at seving sharp." She disappeared.

He spent the time, very cheerfully, taking the things out of the black bag and arranging them. He had suddenly, as was natural in him, forgotten the dismal approach to the house, the overwhelming appearance of Mrs. Brockett, his recent loneliness. Here, at last, was a little spot that he could, for a time, at any rate, call his own. He could come, at any time of the evening and shut his door, and be alone here, master of everything that he surveyed. Perhaps--and the thought sent the blood to his cheeks--it was here that he would write! He looked about the room lovingly. It was quite bare except for the bed, the washing stand and a chair, and there was no fire-place. But he arranged the books, David Copperfield, Don Quixote, Henry Lessingham, The Roads, The Downs, on the window sill, and the little faded photograph of his mother on the ledge above the washing basin. He had scarcely finished doing these things when there was a tap on his door. He opened it, and found the Signor, no longer in a tail-coat, but in a short, faded blue jacket that made him look shabbier than ever.

"Excuse--not intruding, I hope?" He looked gloomily round the room.

"Everything all right?"

"Very nice," said Peter.

"Ah, you'll like it at first--but never mind. Wonderful woman, Mrs.

Brockett. I expect you were alarmed just now."

"I was, a little," admitted Peter.

"Ah, well, we all are at first. But you'll get over that, you'll love her--every one loves her. By the way," he pushed his hand through his hair, "what I came about was to tell you that we all foregather--as you might say--in the sitting-room before dinner--yes--and I'd like to introduce you to my wife, the Signora--not Italian, you know--but you'll like her better than me--every one's agreed that hers is a nicer character."

Peter, trembling a little at the thought of more strangers, followed the Signer downstairs and found, in the middle of one of the dark landings, looking as though she had been left there by some one and completely forgotten, a little wisp of a woman with bright yellow hair and a straw coloured dress, and this was the Signora. This lady shook hands with him in a frightened tearful way and made choking noises all the way downstairs, and this distressed Peter very much until he discovered that she had a passion for cough drops, which she kept in her pocket in a little tin box and sucked perpetually. The Signor drove his wife and Peter before him into the sitting-room. This was a very brightly-coloured room with any number of brilliant purple vases on the mantelpiece, a pink wall-paper, a great number of shining pictures in the most splendid gilt frames, and in the middle of the room a bright green settee with red cushions on it. On this settee, which was round, with a space in the middle of it, like a circus, several persons were seated, but there was apparently no conversation. They all looked up at the opening of the door, and Peter was so dazzled by the bright colour of the room that it was some time before he could collect his thoughts.

But the Signor beckoned to him, and he followed.

"Allow me, Mrs. Monogue," said the Signor, "to introduce to you Mr.

Peter Westcott." The lady in question was stout, red-faced, and muffled in shawls. She extended him a haughty finger.

There followed then Miss Norah Monogue, a girl with a pleasant smile and untidy hair, Miss Dall, a lady with a very stiff back, a face like an interrogation mark, because her eyebrows went up in a point and a very tight black dress, Mr. Herbert Crumley, and Mr. Peter Crumley, two short, thin gentlemen with wizened and anxious faces (they were obviously brothers, because they were exactly alike), and Mrs. and Mr. Tressiter, two pleasant-faced, cheerful people, who sat very close together as though they were cold.

All these people shook hands agreeably with Peter, but made no remarks, and he stood awkwardly looking at the purple vases and wishing that something would happen.

Something _did_ happen. The door was very softly and slowly opened, and a little woman came hurrying in. She had white hair, and glasses were dangling on the end of her nose, and she wore a very old and shabby black silk dress. She looked round with an agitated air.

"I don't know why it is," she said, with a little chirrup, like a bird's, "but I'm _always_ late--always!"

Then she did an amazing thing. She walked to the green settee and sat down between Miss Dall, the lady with the tight dress, and Mrs. Monogue.

She then took out of one pocket an orange and out of another a piece of newspaper.