"Who advised you?" demanded Battick quickly.
"The stationmaster."
"That old thimblerigger, Jason Oakley? Huh! Are you a friend of his?"
It was evident that Mr. Battick was not on friendly terms with many of his neighbors. Hiram Strong did not lack common sense. He proposed to say nothing to cause the householder to turn him out into the downpour, which was now very severe.
"I am just as much a friend of his, Mr. Battick, as I am of yours," the youth said.
"Humph! Well! And I suppose Jason told you to try at Delia Pringle's?"
"He did."
"Humph!" Battick said again, and finally set the gun in a rack near the chimney corner.
At last Hiram Strong felt as though he could look about the room. Heretofore his attention had been given to that gun. The door by which he had entered opened directly from the porch; there was no entry-way. The room seemed to be the entire width of the cottage with a wide fireplace facing the door, and evidently there was another room behind the chimney—perhaps two.
This living room was sufficiently interesting—not to say surprising—to the visitor to hold his full attention for the time being. The two ends of the room, at the right and left of the doorway, first gained Hiram Strong's interest. At the right the wall was completely masked from floor to ceiling by bookshelves, and those shelves were filled with books, the nature of which he could not so easily learn, for the hanging lamp did not thoroughly illuminate the apartment.