Transcriber’s Note
Spelling has been left as printed, except that the sole instance of “Mr. Withers” has been amended to read “Mr. Withersq”; a handful of opening quotation marks have been adjusted for clarity.
Inconsistent hyphenation (dressing-gown/dressing gown, eating-apartment/eating apartment, house-boat/houseboat, life-buoy/lifebuoy, limerick-poet/limerick poet, page-boy/page boy, well-known/well known) has been retained.
The character Emilyon Boom is also sometimes “Emilian Boom” and sometimes “Boon”; this variation has been retained.