pen. When
Callandar had registered, the clerk was very sorry indeed that the hotel
arrangements were rather arbitrary in the matter of meal hours. He was
afraid that the kitchen fires were down and everything cold. Still if
the gentleman would go to his room, he would see what could be done--

The gentleman went to his room; but in no enviable frame of mind. So
wretched was his plight that he was not above valuing the covert
sympathy of the small bell-boy who preceded him up the oilclothed
stairs. He was a very round boy: round legs, round cheeks, round head
and eyes so round that they must have been special eyes made on purpose.
There was also a haunting resemblance to some other boy! Callandar
taxed his memory, and there stole into it a vision of a pool with
willows. He chuckled.

"Boy," he said, "have you a little brother who is very fond of going to
school?"

"Nope," said the boy. (It seemed to be a family word.) "I've got a
brother, but he don't sound like that."

"You ought to be in school yourself, boy. What's your name?"

"Zerubbabel Burk."

"Is that all?"

"Yep. Bubble for short."

"Have you ever known what it is to be hungry?"

"Three times a day, before meals!"

"Well, I'm starving. Do you belong to the Boy Scouts?"

"Betyerlife."

"Well, look here. I am an army in distress. Commissariat cut off,
extinction imminent! Now you go and bring in the provisions. And, as we
believe in honourable warfare, pay for everything you get, but take no
refusals--see?" He pressed a bill into the boy's ready hand and watched
the light of understanding leap into the round eyes with pleasurable
anticipation.

"I get you, Mister! Here's your room, number fourteen."

The boy disappeared while still the key with its long tin label was
jingling in the lock. The doctor opened the door of room number fourteen
and went in.

Rooms, we contend, like people, should be considered in relation to that
state in which it has pleased Providence to place them. To consider
number fourteen in any environment save its own would be manifestly
unfair since, in relation to all the other rooms at the Imperial,
number fourteen was a good room, perhaps the very best. A description
tempts us, but perhaps its best description is to be found in its effect
upon Dr. Callandar. That effect was an immediate determination to depart
by the next train, provided the next train did not leave before he had
had something to eat.

He was aroused