ten to ask Lucy
for the address. I only knew the name, and that the Delaneys were
cheese-mongers, so I had to call on every cheese-monger called Delaney.
My peregrinations were too absurd. 'Have you got a daughter? Has she
left you and gone to London? And that all day in one form or another,
for it was not until evening that I found the Delaneys I was seeking.
The shop was shutting up, but there was a light in the passage, and one
of the boys let me in and I went up the narrow stairs."

"I know them," said Rodney.

"And the room--"

"I know it," said Rodney.

"The horse-hair chairs full of holes."

"I know the rails," said Rodney, "they catch you about here, across the
thighs."

"The table in the middle of the room; the smell of the petroleum lamp
and the great chair--"

"I know," said Rodney, "the Buddah seated! An enormous head! The
smoking-cap and the tassel hanging out of it!"

"The great cheeks hanging and the little eyes, intelligent eyes, too,
under the eyebrows, the only animation in his face. He must be sixteen
stone!"

"He is eighteen."

"The long clay pipe and the fat hands with the nails bitten."

"I see you have been observing him," said Rodney.

"The brown waistcoat with the white bone buttons, curving over the
belly, and the belly shelving down into the short fat thighs, and the
great feet wrapped in woollen slippers!"

"He suffers terribly, and hardly dares to stir out of that chair on
account of the stone in the bladder, which he won't have removed."

"How characteristic the room seemed to me," said Harding. "The piano
against the wall near the window."

"I know," said Rodney. "Lucy used to sit there playing. She plays
beautifully."

"Yes, she plays very well."

"Go on," said Rodney, "what happened?"

"You know the mother, the thin woman with a pretty figure and the faded
hair and the features like Lucy's."

"Yes."

"I had just begun my little explanation about the top of Berkeley
Square, how a girl came up to me and asked me the way to the Gaiety
Theatre, when this little woman rushed forward and, taking hold of both
my hands, said: 'We are so much obliged to you; and we do not know how
much to thank you.' A chair was pushed forward--"

"Which chair?" said Rodney. "I know them all. Was it the one with the
hole in the middle, or was the hole in the side?"

"'If it hadn't been for you,' said Mrs. Delaney, 'I don't know what
would have happened.' 'We've much to thank you for