figure slid cautiously along the
corridor towards him.

At the sight of Bindle emerging from the Office of Works the clergyman
started violently.

"C-c-can you direct me to the bath-room, please?" he enquired nervously.

"Ladies' or gents', sir?" demanded Bindle.

"Ladies', of--I mean gentlemen's." The pale face flushed painfully,
and the tide of hair refused to be held back longer and swept down,
entirely obliterating the right eye.

"Must 'ave forgot 'is dressin'-gown," remarked Bindle, as the cleric
disappeared round a corner in the direction of the bath-room furthest
from his own room, to which he had been directed.

"'E must get over that nervousness of 'is," was Bindle's excuse to
himself, as he returned to his room.

He was just wiping his mouth on his coat sleeve after draining the last
drop of beer, when he heard a suppressed scream from the corridor. He
opened the door suddenly, and was startled to find himself confronted
by a woman of uncertain age in an elaborate rose-pink neglige and mob
cap--beneath which was to be seen a head suspiciously well-coiffed for
that hour of the morning.

"Oh! Oh!! Oh!!!" she gasped, as she entered the room, obviously
labouring under some great emotion.

"Anythink I can do, miss?" enquired Bindle respectfully, marvelling at
the make-up that lay thick upon her withered cheeks.

"Looks like an apple wot they've forgot to pluck," he commented
inwardly. "Anythink I can do, miss?"

"There's--there's a--a m-m-man in my room," she gasped.

"A wot, miss?" enquired Bindle in shocked surprise.

"A m-m-man."

"Yer 'usband, mum," Bindle suggested diplomatically.

"I haven't got one," she stuttered. "Oh! it's dreadful. He--he's in
my bed, and he's bald, and he's got black whiskers."

Bindle whistled. "'Ow long's 'e been there, miss?" he enquired.

"I went to the bath-room and--and he was there when I got back. It's
horrible, dreadful," and two tears that had hung pendulously in the
corner of her eyes decided to made the plunge, and ploughed their way
through the make-up, leaving brown trails like devastating armies.

"Oh, what shall I do?"

"Well, since you arst me, miss, I shouldn't say any think about it,"
replied Bindle.

"Nothing about it, nothing about a man being in my bed?" She was on
the verge of hysterics. "What do you mean?"

"Well, miss, 'otels is funny places. They might put 'im on the bill as
a extra."

"You--you----"

What it was that