author - "R. Austin Freeman"
He will be so glad to hear that you have come. I had better go and tellhim. Perhaps you will kindly sit down until he is able to come to you,"and with this she departed on her mission.
It struck me as a little odd that, considering his anxiety and theapparent urgency of the case, Mr. Weiss should not have been waiting toreceive me. And when several minutes elapsed without his appearing, theoddness of the circumstance impressed me still more. Having no desire,after the journey in the carriage, to sit down, I whiled away the timeby an inspection of the room. And a very curious room it was; bare,dirty, neglected and, apparently, unused. A faded carpet had been flunguntidily on the floor. A small, shabby table stood in the middle of theroom; and beyond this, three horsehair-covered chairs and a chest ofdrawers formed the entire set of furniture. No pictures hung on themouldy walls, no curtains covered the shuttered windows, and the darkdrapery of cobwebs that hung from the ceiling to commemorate
er who had thus adorned his habitation--a law-writer perhaps or an author, or perchance even a poet--when I perceived the number that I was seeking inscribed on a shabby door in a high wall. There was no bell or knocker, so, lifting the latch, I pushed the door open and entered.
But if the court itself had been a surprise, this was a positive wonder, a dream. Here, within earshot of the rumble of Fleet Street, I was in an old-fashioned garden enclosed by high walls and, now that the gate was shut, cut off from all sight and knowledge of the urban world that seethed without. I stood and gazed in delighted astonishment. Sun-gilded trees and flower beds gay with blossom; lupins, snapdragons, nasturtiums, spiry foxgloves, and mighty hollyhocks formed the foreground; over which a pair of sulphur-tinted butterflies flitted, unmindful of a buxom and miraculously clean white cat which pursued them, dancing across the borders and clapping her snowy paws fruitlessly in mid-air. And the background was no less won
He will be so glad to hear that you have come. I had better go and tellhim. Perhaps you will kindly sit down until he is able to come to you,"and with this she departed on her mission.
It struck me as a little odd that, considering his anxiety and theapparent urgency of the case, Mr. Weiss should not have been waiting toreceive me. And when several minutes elapsed without his appearing, theoddness of the circumstance impressed me still more. Having no desire,after the journey in the carriage, to sit down, I whiled away the timeby an inspection of the room. And a very curious room it was; bare,dirty, neglected and, apparently, unused. A faded carpet had been flunguntidily on the floor. A small, shabby table stood in the middle of theroom; and beyond this, three horsehair-covered chairs and a chest ofdrawers formed the entire set of furniture. No pictures hung on themouldy walls, no curtains covered the shuttered windows, and the darkdrapery of cobwebs that hung from the ceiling to commemorate
er who had thus adorned his habitation--a law-writer perhaps or an author, or perchance even a poet--when I perceived the number that I was seeking inscribed on a shabby door in a high wall. There was no bell or knocker, so, lifting the latch, I pushed the door open and entered.
But if the court itself had been a surprise, this was a positive wonder, a dream. Here, within earshot of the rumble of Fleet Street, I was in an old-fashioned garden enclosed by high walls and, now that the gate was shut, cut off from all sight and knowledge of the urban world that seethed without. I stood and gazed in delighted astonishment. Sun-gilded trees and flower beds gay with blossom; lupins, snapdragons, nasturtiums, spiry foxgloves, and mighty hollyhocks formed the foreground; over which a pair of sulphur-tinted butterflies flitted, unmindful of a buxom and miraculously clean white cat which pursued them, dancing across the borders and clapping her snowy paws fruitlessly in mid-air. And the background was no less won