ust as I am asking myself this, I meet Chilvern on the roof. He is examining the chimneys. The others are below choosing their rooms. It appears that no one has been up the narrow staircase except myself. He shows me a different way down.

We take another turn over the house. This time more observantly. Various orders of architecture. Chilvern, as an architect, makes a professional joke. He says, “The best order of architecture is an order to build an unlimited number of houses.”

Happy Thought.—Who was the first scientific builder? Answer.—Noah, when he invented arky-tecture. (N.B. This will do for a Sunday conundrum.)

Part of it is very old, (the staircase and tower part where I've been), and wall of the yard at the back, overgrown with ivy, shows the remains of a genuine Norman arch.

Another quarter is decidedly Elizabethan, while a long and well proportioned music room,—of which the walls and ceiling, once evidently covered with paintings, are now dirty, damp, and exhibiting, here and there, patches of colour not yet entirely faded,—is decidedly Italian.

Of this apartment, the crone can tell us nothing. She never recollects it inhabited. We undo the huge shutters for ourselves, and bring down a cloud of dust and cobwebs.

The rays of light, bursting violently, as it were, into the darkness—become—after once passing the square panes, or where there are no panes, the framework—suddenly impure, and in need of a patent filter before they are fit for use.

Chilvern admires the proportions, and asks what we'll make, of this room?

A pause.

Happy Thought.—A Theatre. Nothing more evident; nothing easier.

I notice that both Boodels and Milburd catch at this idea. From which I fancy, knowing from experience Boodels' turn for poetry, that they have got, ready for production, what they will call, “little things of their own that they've just knocked off.”

Almost wish I hadn't suggested it. But if they've got something to act, so have I. If they do theirs, they must let mine be done.

Settled, that it is to be a theatre.

Odd that no one part of the house seems finished. Saxons started it; Normans got tired of it; Tudors touched it up; Annians added to it.

Happy Thought.—(Alliterative, on the plan of “A was an Apple pie.”)

“Joice,” I explain, is a term derived from building; “to joice, i. e. to make joices to the floors.” Chilvern says, “Pooh!” To “vamp” is equal, in musical language, to “scamp” or to dodge up. The last owner evidently has done this.

Happy Thought.—Good name for a Spanish speculative builder—Don Vampa di Scampo. Evidently an architect of ChÂteaux d'Espagne.

We visit the stables. The gates are magnificent, two lions sit on their tails, and guard shields on two huge pillars. After this effort, the owner seems to have got tired of the place and left it.

We notice this of every room, of various doors, of many windows.

Successive tenants have commenced with great ideas, which have, so to speak, vanished in perspective.

Boodels becomes melancholy. He says, “I should call this ‘The House of Good Intentions.’”

I point out that these we are going to perfect and utilise.

A brilliant idea strikes me. I say— Happy Thought.—Let us call it, “Happy-Thought Hall.” I add that this will look well on the top of note-paper.