Orchard was willing to undertake anything—artistic. But his great hobby was house-building. He said that the average architect didn’t get the surroundings in harmony. The architect’s work only began when the roof was on. He should design the garden, the furniture. He should choose the pictures, the tenants. Every new house ought to be embowered in creepers from the very start. An old lawn and a clipped yew tree were as essential, more essential, than water pipes. The house must cultivate a ghost. It must have a peacock with a spread tail, a fish pond, full of hoary carp, a raven that would say “nevermore.”
He was full of amusing sentiment. He bought his bread at Mackary’s, the confectioner’s near Bernard Street. It was a queer old shop. Orchard said that it reminded him of Hogarth. Of course he had the greatest possible contempt for Hogarth—but he liked the faint flavor of hoops and beauty patches which hung about Mackary’s.
Mackary’s business, so it is said above the door, was founded in 1712. The shop window was bow-fronted and had small square panes. Behind these panes were home-baked puffs and Banburys, straight glass bottles full of pink lozenges or sponge fingers. Mackary kept up the traditions of his house. He still made a feature of a special cake said to have been a favorite with Queen Charlotte, and he ignored French pastry.
Miss Mackary kept the books, and wrote poetry after the shutters were up. Mrs. Mackary was plump, wore a lace cap, and had house property in her own right near Tarn’s. They were superior people. Orchard willingly paid a halfpenny more on the half-quartern loaf for the privilege of stepping in with the assured air of a regular customer. He never paid his bill, so that it really made no difference. He used to sit and eat Queen Charlotte’s cakes and talk poetry with Miss Mackary. They were all very civil to him—he used to say that nothing demoralized a tradesman more than cash payment.
I don’t know why I tell you of Whiffin, of the Mackarys, of Orchard’s crazy architectural ideas—they have nothing to do with the story. But they will prove to you what a harmless simpleton he was before he took set 7, before the advent of Hopkins.
Hopkins had the set on the other side of the landing—the right-hand side as you go up. Orchard took the one on the left, he moved there from a ground floor in the other square. Set 7 was cheaper—that baleful set, which held at different times the tragedies of Orion, of Jimmy, of Stapley.
No one had ever seen Hopkins, he was said to be abroad. Therefore it surprised me when Orchard said casually, with faint annoyance, that his neighbor across the landing was a nuisance; he came in late and made an awful row taking off his boots.
I didn’t see Orchard for two or three months after this. It was astounding when next I went up to his rooms to see that Hopkins’ name was painted out from the oak on the right-hand set and bracketed with Orchard’s name on the left. There it was, as plain as white paint on a black door could make it:
| MR. D. B. ORCHARD. |
| MR. GEOFFREY HOPKINS. |
I was surprised, I was also interested; no one had ever seen Hopkins. No one particularly wanted to. Still, as I waited for Orchard to let me in, I had a languid curiosity to know what his co-tenant was like.