"Great heavens! And why did he allow these abominable placards to be pasted on his walls?"
"The old chap who let him the place wanted some money, so Jim made him a present of the outside of the house for advertising purposes," explained Koko.
The Doctor looked amazed.
"Dear! dear! What a quixotic notion!"
"Jim was always like that," said Koko.
The old Doctor bit his lip and again frowned upon the posters. Filling the bill this week at the local theatre was a play in which a steam-roller was the principal attraction. A poster, cunningly attached to Jim's wall, just where his red lamp would shine upon it after dusk, depicted the steam-roller descending a narrow hill at top speed, while directly in its track lay a young woman in evening dress, and apparently unconscious. The poster had attracted half the adult population of Mount Street to the theatre.
"Now I come to think of it," said the Doctor, "I remember something of this kind was visible in the photograph of the place which James sent me at Christmas. It represented a man throwing another man--or a woman, possibly a woman--out of a balloon. I suppose these dreadful pictures are changed every week?"
"Yes, something fresh every Monday," said Koko.
"Dear, dear me! To think of it!"
"It didn't matter to Jim," put in Koko; "he was rather amused by the posters."