That same day Mr. Butt went out to the suburbs and put the Joneses’ furniture to rights.
“I worked all afternoon,” he told me afterwards,—“hard at it with my coat off—got the pictures up first—they’d been trying to put them up by themselves in the morning. I had to take down every one of them—not a single one right,—‘Down they come,’ I said, and went at it with a will.”
A few days later Mr. Butt gave me a further report. “Yes,” he said, “the furniture is all unpacked and straightened out but I don’t like it. There’s a lot of it I don’t quite like. I half feel like advising Jones to sell it and get some more. But I don’t want to do that till I’m quite certain about it.”
After that Mr. Butt seemed much occupied and I didn’t see him at the club for some time.
“How about the Everleigh-Joneses?” I asked. “Are they comfortable in their new house?”
Mr. Butt shook his head. “It won’t do,” he said. “I was afraid of it from the first. I’m moving Jones in nearer to town. I’ve been out all morning looking for an apartment; when I get the right one I shall move him. I like an apartment far better than a house.”
So the Joneses in due course of time were moved. After that Mr. Butt was very busy selecting a piano, and advising them on wall paper and woodwork.
They were hardly settled in their new home when fresh trouble came to them.
“Have you heard about Everleigh-Jones?” said Mr. Butt one day with an anxious face.
“No,” I answered.