s hammock, wrote up his ledgers, interviewed his customers, and in the
intervals cooked his meals on an oil-stove--was, in pact, a store of
ample dimensions. To speak precisely, it measured thirty-six feet by
fourteen. But Mr. Hucks had reduced its habitable space to some eight
feet by six, and by the following process.

Over and above the activities mentioned on his business card, he was a
landlord, and owned a considerable amount of cottage property, including
a whole block of tenement houses hard by The Plain. Nothing could be
simpler than his method of managing this estate. He never spent a penny
on upkeep or repairs. On a vacancy he accepted any tenant who chose to
apply. He collected his rents weekly and in person, and if the rent
were not forthcoming he promptly distrained upon the furniture.

By this process Mr. Hucks kept his Counting House replete, and even
crowded, with chattels, some of which are reckoned among the necessaries
of life, while others--such as an accordion, a rain-gauge, and a case of
stuffed humming-birds--rank rather with its superfluities. Of others
again you wondered how on earth they had been taken in Mr. Hucks's
drag-net. A carriage umbrella, for example, set you speculating on the
vicissitudes of human greatness. When the collection impinged upon Mr.
Hucks so that he could not shave without knocking his elbow, he would
hold an auction, and effect a partial clearance; and this would happen
about once in four years. But this clearance was never more than
partial, and the residuum ever consisted in the main of musical
instruments. Every man has his own superstitions, and for some reason
Mr. Hucks--who had not a note of music in his soul--deemed it unlucky to
part with musical instruments, which was the more embarrassing because
his most transitory tenants happened to be folk who practised music on
the public for a livelihood--German bandsmen, for instance, not so well
versed in English law as to be aware that implements of a man's trade
stand exempt from seizure in execution. Indeed, the bulk of the
exhibits in Mr. Hucks's museum could legally have been recovered from
him under writ of replevy. But there they were, and in the midst of
them to-night their collector sat and worked at his ledger by the light
of a hurricane lamp.

A knock at the door disturbed his calculations.

"Come in!" he called, and Dr. Glasson entered.

"Eh? Good evenin'," said Mr. Hucks, but without hea