ND now I must tell you something about my rooms, the little ledge in London in which I rested, and flapped my wings and preened my feathers. The door of the house rented by Mr. and Mrs. Titch, and disposed of piece-meal to unmarried gentlemen, looked upon a very tiny square opening off a busy street. But my two chambers were at the back, and from their windows I saw nothing of square or street, or any house at all. The green Hyde Park with its trees and grass, and the wide drive where carriages and people aired themselves and lingered, that was what I saw; and often I could fancy myself in the woods and the gardens about a certain house in another land, and then I would shut my eyes and let the picture grow and grow, till I could hear known voices and look upon old faces that perhaps I should never again hear or see in any other fashion. Yes, the exile may be very gay, and jingle the foreign coins in his pocket, and whistle the airs of alien songs, and afterwards write humorously of his adventures; but there are many moments when he and the canary in the cage are very near together.

For myself, I am best, my friends say, when I am laughing at the world and playing somewhat the buffoon. And, of course, I am naturally anxious to appear at my best. Besides, I must confess that I do not think this world is an affair to be treated with a too great gravity; not, at least, if one can help it. Frequently it makes itself ridiculous even in the partial eyes of its own inhabitants. How much more frequently if one could sit outside—upon a passing shower, for instance—and see it as we look upon a play? Ten to one, some of our most sententious friends would seem no different from those amusing sparrows discussing the law of property in a bread-crumb, or from my dog playing the solemn comedy of the buried bone. Therefore I always think it safer to assume that there is some unseen cynic, some creature in the fourth dimension, looking over my shoulder as I write, and exclaiming, when I grow too sensible, “Oh, the wise fool!”

Yet for all this excellent philosophy, and in spite of a most reasonable desire to say those things that are instantly rewarded by a smile, rather than those an audience receives in silence, and perhaps approves, perhaps condemns—despite all this, the rubbing of the world upon a set of nerves does not always make one merry; and in that humor I should sometimes like to perpetrate a serious sentence. If ever I succumb to this temptation of the writer's devil, please turn the page and do not linger over the indiscretion.

Therefore I shall pass quickly over the thin ice of sentiment, the days when I felt lonely on my comfortable ledge, the hours I spent looking at the fire. More amusing to tell you of the bright lining to my clouds; of the sitting-room, for instance, low in the ceiling, commodious, and shaped, I think, to fit the chimneys or the stairs or the water-butt outside; at any rate, to suit something that required two unequal recesses and three non-rectangular corners. It was on the ground-floor, and had two French windows (of which the adjective cheered me, I think, as much as the noun). These opened upon a little, stone-paved space, shaded by a high tree in the park, and which I called my garden.

Rejecting some articles of my landlord's furniture as too splendid for an untitled tenant—a plush-covered settee, for instance, and an alabaster tea-table, adorned with cut-glass trophies from the drawing-room of a bankrupt alderman—I replaced them by a bookcase, three easy-chairs, and an inviting sofa of my own; I bought substitutes for the engravings of “The Child's First Prayer” and “The Last Kiss,” and the colored plates representing idyllic passages from the lives of honest artisans, which had regaled my predecessor; I recurtained the dear French windows.

Neither Mr. Titch nor his good wife entirely approved of these changes. In fact, I suspect they would have given such a Goth notice to quit in a month had it not been for the reflection that, after all, such eccentricities were only to be expected of a foreigner. The English have a most amusing contempt for the rest of mankind, accompanied by an equally amusing toleration for the peculiarities that are naturaly associated with such degenerates. The Chinese, I understand, have an equal national modesty, but their contempt for the foreigner finds expression in a desire to decapitate his mangled remains. John Bull, on the other hand, will not only allow but expect you to walk upon your head, eat rats and mice, maintain a staff of poisonous serpents, and even play the barrel-organ. This goes to such a length that supposing you beat him at something he most prides himself upon, such as rowing, boxing, or manufactures, he will but smile and shake his head and say, “These are, indeed, most remarkable animals.”

Mr. and Mrs. Titch were no exceptions to this rule, and I think that in time they even came to have an affection for and a pride in their preposterous tenant, much like an enthusiastic savant who handicaps himself with a half-tamed cobra.

Mr. Titch was a little, gray-haired man, with a respectful manner overlaid upon a consequential air. He had enjoyed varied experience as footman and butler in several families of distinction, and my Halfred had been but a short time in the house before he became tremendously impressed by Mr. Titch's reminiscences of the great, and his vast knowledge of Halfred's own profession.

“Wonderful man, Mr. Titch, sir,” he would say to me. “What 'e don't know about our Henglish haristocracy ain't worth knowing. You'd 'ardly believe it, sir, but he seed the Dook of Balham puttin' his arm round Lady Sarah Elcey's waist three months before their engagement was in the papers, and the Dook 'e says to 'im, 'Titch,' says he, ''ere's a five-pun' note; you're a man of discretion, you are, and what you sees you keeps to yourself, don't you? I mean no 'arm,' he says. 'I'll hundertake to marry the lady if you only gives me time.' And Mr. Titch, he lay low three 'ole months a-knowing a secret like that.”

Mr. Titch's caution and advice were certainly serviceable to Halfred, who was rapidly becoming transformed from the cheerful 'bus-driver into the obliging valet. Whether the world did not lose more than I gained by this change I shall not undertake to say; but I can always console myself for depriving society of a friend, and Halfred of his “hinderpendence,” by picturing the little man, poorly protected by his nondescript rug, driving his 'bus all day through the wind and the rain, he, at least, enjoyed the transformation; and one result is worth a hundred admirable theories. Besides, the virtues of Halfred remained the virtues of Halfred through all the polishings of circumstances and Mr. Titch.

For the good Mrs. Titch, my discerning servant expressed a respect only a shade less profound than his homage to her spouse. Now this excellent lady, though motherly in appearance and wonderfully dignified in the black silk in which she rustled to church of a Sunday, was not remarkable either for acuteness of mind or that wide knowledge of the world enjoyed by Mr. Titch. She knew little of the aristocracy except through his reminiscences, though I am bound to say her respect for that august institution was as profound as Major Pendennis himself could have desired. Also her observations on that portion of the world she had met were distinguished by an erroneous and solemn foolishness that cannot have passed unnoticed by Halfred.

Yet he quoted and reverenced her with an inexplicable lack of discrimination.

“Mrs. Titch is what I calls, sir, a genuwine lady in a 'umble sphere,” he once remarked to me. “Her delicacy is surprisin'.”

Yes, there must be some mysterious glamour about these worthy people, and this glamour I began to have dark suspicions was none other than Miss Aramatilda Titch, daughter of the ex-butler and his genuine lady.

At first I saw this maiden seldom, and then only by glimpses. As more than one of these revealed her in curl-papers, and as I do not appreciate woman thus decked out, I paid her but little attention. But after a week or two had passed I surprised her one afternoon conversing in my sitting-room with the affable Halfred.

“Miss Titch is a-lookin' to see if the windows want cleaning,” he explained. Though, as they were standing in the recess farthest removed from the windows, I came to the conclusion that other matters also were being discussed.

It was about this time that I had hired a piano to console my solitude, and a day or two later, as I came towards my room, I heard a tinkle of music. Pushing the door gently open, I saw Miss Aramatilda picking out the air of a polka, and Halfred listening to this melody with the most undisguised admiration.

This time his explanation was more lamely delivered, while Aramatilda showed the liveliest confusion and dismay.

“My dear Miss Titch,” I assured her, “by all means practise my piano while I am out—provided, of course, that Mr. Winkles gives you permission. She asked you, no doubt, if she might play it, Halfred?”

This did not diminish their confusion, I am afraid, and after that their concerts were better protected against surprise.

Not that I should have objected very strongly to take Halfred's place as audience one day, for these further opportunities of seeing Miss Titch roused in me some sympathy with my valet. Aramatilda was undoubtedly attractive with her hair freed from a too severe restraint, a plump, brown-eyed young woman, smiling in the most engaging fashion when politely addressed. Indeed, I should have addressed her more frequently had not Halfred shown such evident interest in her himself. In these matters I have always held it better that master and man should be separately apportioned.

There remains but one other inhabitant of this house who comes into my story and that was a certain old gentleman living in the rooms immediately over mine. In fact, we two were the only lodgers, and so, having few friends as yet, I began to feel some interest in him.

I had heard him referred to always as “the General,” and the few glimpses I had had of him confirmed this title. Figure to yourself an erect man of middle height, white-mustached, quick in his step, with an eye essentially military—that is to say, expressionless in repose, keen when aroused—and do you not allow that, if he is not a general, he at least ought to be?

“Who is this general?” I asked Halfred one day.

“As rummy a old customer as ever was, sir,” said Halfred. “Been here for three years and never 'ad a visitor inside his room all that time, exceptin' one lady.”

“A lady?” I said. “His—”

“Don't know, sir. Some says one thing, some says another. Kind o' a hexotic, I calls 'im, sir. Miss Titch she thinks he's 'ad a affair of the 'eart; I think he booses same as a old pal o' mine what kept a chemist's shop in Stepney used to. My friend he locks 'isself up in the back room and puts away morphine and nicotine and strychnine and them things by the 'alf-pint. 'Ole days at it he were, sir, and all the time the small boys a-sneak-ing cough-drops, and tooth-brushes for to make feathers for their 'ats when playin' at soldiers, and when the doctor he sees 'im at last he says nothing but a hepileptic 'ome wouldn't do 'im any good.”

“You think, then, the General drinks?” I said.

“Either that or makes counterfeit coins, sir,” said Halfred, with an ominous shake of his bullet head.

I was quite aware of my Halfred's partiality for the melodramatic. Nevertheless there was certainly something unusual in my neighbor's conduct that excited my interest considerably. For I confess I am one of those who are apt to be blind towards the mysteries of the obvious and the miracles of every day, and to revel in the romance of the singular.