"Oh, certainly: take them all, Mrs. Jinks," replied he, in the most accommodating manner possible. "I can sit upon the table."
Mrs. Jinks considerately left him one, however, and went down with the rest. He found out she had taken up the notion that his name was "Strange," and laughed a little.
"Some misunderstanding, I suppose, on her part when I said I was a stranger," thought he. "All right; I'll not contradict it."
While the bumping and thumping went on, caused by the progress of chairs down from the chambers and up from the kitchen, and the knocker and the bell kept up a perpetual duet, Mr. Strange (we will call him so at present ourselves) put on his hat to go round and order his portmanteau to be sent from the station. As he passed the parlour door it stood open; no one was looking his way; he had a good view of the interior, and took in the scene and the details with his observant eyes. A comfortable room, containing a dozen or two charming and chattering ladies, surrounded by a perfect epitome of tasty and luxurious objects that had been worked by fair fingers. Cushions, anti-macassars, slippers, scrolls, drawings enshrined in leather frames, ornamental mats by the dozen, cosies for tea-pots, lamp tops and stands, flowers in wax under shades, sweet flowers from hothouses in water, and other things too numerous to mention.
"A man beset, that clergyman," thought Mr. Strange, with a silent laugh, as he bent his steps towards the railway. "He should get married and stop it. Perhaps he likes it, though: some of them do who have more vanity than brains."
So he ordered his portmanteau to No. 5, Paradise Row, contriving to leave the same impression at the station that he had given Mrs. Jinks--a reading man in search of quiet and health.
Mrs. Jinks presided at the arrival of the portmanteau, and saw some books taken out of it in the drawing-room. While her lodger's back was turned, she took the liberty of peeping into one or two of them; and finding their language was what she could not read, supposed it to be Greek or Latin. Before the night was over, all Paradise Row, upwards and downwards, had been regaled with the news of her new lodger, and the particulars concerning his affairs.
"A scholar-gent, by name of Strange, who had come down to read and get up his health, and had brought his Greek and Latin books with him."