The interior of the bungalow turned out to be ideal. There were six rooms in all—two reception-rooms, three bedrooms and a kitchen. The scheme of decoration was charming, and had evidently been carefully thought out by the “painter-chap” Pickett had referred to.
Above all, there was a splendid bathroom.
This last item decided Barrimore to take the bungalow. To him who revelled in a cold morning tub it was of no consequence that there was no means of heating the bath.
“You may start on the stable as soon as you like,” he said to the delighted farmer. “I shall come in with a manservant next week. I suppose I can put up a saddle-horse at your farm till the stable is ready? I shall need to ride into Hastings frequently at first.”
“Oh, certainly, sir. I have plenty of stable room,” responded Pickett.
While the farmer was locking the door, Barrimore, took out a penknife and cut some roses to take back for his mother, who loved little attentions.
“Poor old mummy!” he said to himself. “She is a bit sore about my wanting to be away from home, but I can’t stand Uncle Robert’s quotations!”
Barrimore had walked the whole five miles from Hastings to Pickett’s Farm at Gissing, having seen an advertisement of the bungalow, and he was going to walk the whole distance back, to get rid of the irritability caused by Uncle Robert’s quotations.
Uncle Robert was his mother’s brother, and had been christened Robert because his surname was Burns, and he had evidently conceived the idea that the mantle of the poet after whom he was named had descended upon him. He read incessantly, and remembered all he read. It was not his fault if everyone else did not remember it also. He also wrote verse.
Uncle Robert had made his home with his sister since she had been a widow, and Philip Barrimore, who had taken up literature as a career, found at last that home was an impossible place to work in.