It is a big cupboard; you wouldn't find many rooms in London with a cupboard like that; and it is included in the fixtures. Yet in the ordinary way, I suppose, I could not go on putting things in for ever. One day, however, I discovered that a family of mice had heard of it too. At first I was horrified. Then I saw that it was all for the best; they might help me to get rid of things. In a week they had eaten three pages of a nautical almanac; interesting pages which would be of real help to a married man at sea who wished to find the latitude by means of two fixed stars, but which, to a bachelor on the fourth floor, were valueless.
The housekeeper missed the point. She went so far as to buy me an extremely patent mousetrap. It was a silly trap, because none of the mice knew how to work it, although I baited it once with a cold poached egg. It is not for us to say what our humbler brethren should like and dislike; we can only discover by trial and error. It occurred to me that, if they did like cold poached eggs, I should be able to keep on good terms with them, for I generally had one over of a morning. However, it turned out that they preferred a vegetable diet—almanacs and such....
The cupboard is nearly full. I don't usually open it to visitors, but perhaps you would care to look inside for a moment?
That was once a top-hat. What do you do with your old top-hats? Ah, yes, but then I only have a housekeeper here at present.... That is a really good pair of boots, only it's too small.... All that paper over there? Manuscript.... Well, you see it might be valuable one day....
Broken batting glove. Brown paper—I always keep brown paper, it's useful if you're sending off a parcel. Daily Mail war map. Paint-pot—doesn't belong to me really, but it was left behind, and I got tired of kicking it over. Old letters—all the same handwriting, bills probably....
Ah, no, they are not bills, you mustn't look at those. (I didn't know they were there—I swear I didn't. I thought I had burnt them.) Of course I see now that she was quite right.... Yes, that was the very sweet one where she ... well, I knew even then that ... I mean I'm not complaining at all, we had a very jolly time....
Still, if it had been a little different—if that last letter.... Well, I might by now have had a garden of my own in which to have buried all this rubbish.
THE POST BAG
The other day I received a letter from some very old friends of mine who live in Queen Victoria Street.