“Very helpful I should think, sir. And so you found your way here. Well—The room’s upstairs if you’d come up. Hold tight, Susan, and try not to strangle me.” And he led the way up the staircase.
It was just the usual staircase and hall with oilcloth and wall-paper to imitate some exceptionally bilious coarse-grained wood. As they ascended the young lady ran great risks in her resolution never to take her eyes off Sargon and his map. She twisted round a complete circle and forced her bearer to stop on the first landing and readjust her. “If you pull my hair once more,” said the slender young man, “I shall put you down and never, never, never give you a ride again. It’s on the next floor, sir, if you’d go first.”
The room appeared delightfully free from unnecessary furnishings. There was a little plain bed, a table under the window, and a gas-stove, and the walls were papered in brown paper, adorned with commonplace but refreshing Japanese colour prints. There was a recess one side of the fire-place with three empty shelves painted like the mantelpiece, a deep blue. The young man had clicked on an electric light, which was pleasantly shaded.
“It’s rather plain,” said the young man.
“I like it,” said Sargon. “I have no use for superfluities.”
“It used to be my room,” said the young man, “but now I share the dining-room floor with the people downstairs and I’ve given this up. It’s rather on my conscience——”
“People downstairs—what people downstairs? There aren’t no People downstairs. It’s Daddy and Mummy he means,” said the young lady.
“It’s rather on my conscience,” said the young man, “that I persuaded Mrs. Richman to alter the furniture. It isn’t to everybody’s taste.”
“May I ask,” said Sargon, “how much the room might be?”
“Thirty shillings, I believe,” said the young man, “with breakfasts.”