Lambert; but Balbus would not so soon awake
from his dream of beauty.

"See, boys!" he cried. "Twenty doors on a side! What symmetry! Each side
divided into twenty-one equal parts! It's delicious!"

"Shall I knock, or ring?" said Hugh, looking in some perplexity at a
square brass plate which bore the simple inscription "RING ALSO."

"Both," said Balbus. "That's an Ellipsis, my boy. Did you never see an
Ellipsis before?"

"I couldn't hardly read it," said Hugh, evasively. "It's no good having
an Ellipsis, if they don't keep it clean."

"Which there is _one_ room, gentlemen," said the smiling landlady. "And
a sweet room too! As snug a little back-room----"

"We will see it," said Balbus gloomily, as they followed her in. "I knew
how it would be! One room in each house! No view, I suppose?"

"Which indeed there _is_, gentlemen!" the landlady indignantly
protested, as she drew up the blind, and indicated the back garden.

"Cabbages, I perceive," said Balbus. "Well, they're green, at any rate."

"Which the greens at the shops," their hostess explained, "are by no
means dependable upon. Here you has them on the premises, _and_ of the
best."

"Does the window open?" was always Balbus' first question in testing a
lodging: and "Does the chimney smoke?" his second. Satisfied on all
points, he secured the refusal of the room, and they moved on to Number
Twenty-five.

This landlady was grave and stern. "I've nobbut one room left," she
told them: "and it gives on the back-gyardin."

"But there are cabbages?" Balbus suggested.

The landlady visibly relented. "There is, sir," she said: "and good
ones, though I say it as shouldn't. We can't rely on the shops for
greens. So we grows them ourselves."

"A singular advantage," said Balbus: and, after the usual questions,
they went on to Fifty-two.

"And I'd gladly accommodate you all, if I could," was the greeting that
met them. "We are but mortal," ("Irrelevant!" muttered Balbus) "and I've
let all my rooms but one."

"Which one is a back-room, I perceive," said Balbus: "and looking out
on--on cabbages, I presume?"

"Yes, indeed, sir!" said their hostess. "Whatever _other_ folks may do,
_we_ grows our own. For the shops----"

"An excellent arrangement!" Balbus interrupted. "Then one can really
depend on their being good. Does the window open?"

The usual questions were answered satisfactorily: but this time Hugh
added one of his own invention--"Does the cat scratch?