frill
was the confidential servant, butler, valet, factotum, what you will, of
a sick gentleman, a Mr. Oswald Strange, who had recently come to inhabit
the house opposite, and concerning whose history my new acquaintance,
whose name I ascertained was Masey, seemed disposed to be somewhat
communicative. His master, it appeared, had come down to this place,
partly for the sake of reducing his establishment--not, Mr. Masey was
swift to inform me, on economical principles, but because the poor
gentleman, for particular reasons, wished to have few dependents about
him--partly in order that he might be near his old friend, Dr. Garden,
who was established in the neighbourhood, and whose society and advice
were necessary to Mr. Strange's life. That life was, it appeared, held
by this suffering gentleman on a precarious tenure. It was ebbing away
fast with each passing hour. The servant already spoke of his master in
the past tense, describing him to me as a young gentleman not more than
five-and-thirty years of age, with a young face, as far as the features
and build of it went, but with an expression which had nothing of youth
about it. This was the great peculiarity of the man. At a distance he
looked younger than he was by many years, and strangers, at the time when
he had been used to get about, always took him for a man of seven or
eight-and-twenty, but they changed their minds on getting nearer to him.
Old Masey had a way of his own of summing up the peculiarities of his
master, repeating twenty times over: "Sir, he was Strange by name, and
Strange by nature, and Strange to look at into the bargain."

It was during my second or third interview with the old fellow that he
uttered the words quoted at the beginning of this plain narrative.

"Not such a thing as a looking-glass in all the house," the old man said,
standing beside my piece of timber, and looking across reflectively at
the house opposite. "Not one."

"In the sitting-rooms, I suppose you mean?"

"No, sir, I mean sitting-rooms and bedrooms both; there isn't so much as
a shaving-glass as big as the palm of your hand anywhere."

"But how is it?" I asked. "Why are there no looking-glasses in any of
the rooms?"

"Ah, sir!" replied Masey, "that's what none of us can ever tell. There
is the mystery. It's just a fancy on the part of my master. He had some
strange fancies, and this was one of them. A pleasant gentleman he was
to live with, as any servan