“That’s what Mr. Barry has, sir, the leaping mind,” observed Blake, as if pleased with the phrase. “Often he jumps to a conclusion or decision that his father’d take hours to reach.”
“Mr. Stannard was slow, then?”
“Not to say slow, in some things. He was like lightning at his work. But as to a matter, now, that he didn’t want to bother about, he would put it off or dawdle about it, something awful.”
“And you see,” Bobsy went on, “there are only three doors and three windows in the place. Now we have accounted for——”
“What’s the gallery for?” asked Steele, gazing up at the gilded iron scrollwork of the little balcony.
“Just for ornament, sir,” Blake returned. “And I’ve heard Mr. Stannard say, it was necessary, to break up that wall. You see, the ceiling is some twenty feet high, and no windows on that side, being next the main house.”
“It’s all one house,—there’s no division?”
“No real division, sir, but this end,—the studio and Billiard Room on this floor, and the rooms directly above,—are all Mr. Stannard’s own, and in a way separate from the rest of the house.”
“His sleeping room is above the studio?”
“Yes, sir; and his bath and dressing-room and den. Mrs. Stannard’s rooms are next, over the Reception Room, and all the other bedrooms are over the dining room end, and in the third story.”