e image of his brother-in-law, Colonel Monk.

John Porson was a man of about six or eight and fifty, round-faced,
bald, with large blue eyes not unlike those of a china doll, and
clean-shaven except for a pair of sandy-coloured mutton-chop whiskers.
In expression he was gentle, even timid, and in figure short and stout.
At this very moment behind a hundred counters stand a hundred replicas
of that good-hearted man and worthy citizen, John Porson. Can he be
described better or more briefly?

"How are you Colonel?" he said, hurrying forward. He had never yet dared
to call his brother-in-law "Monk," and much less by his Christian name,
so he compromised on "Colonel."

"Pretty well, thank you, considering my years and botherations. And how
are you, John?"

"Not very grand, not very grand," said the little man; "my heart has
been troubling me, and it was so dreadfully hot in London."

"Then why didn't you come away?"

"Really I don't know. I understood that it had something to do with a
party, but I think the fact is that Mary was too lazy to look after the
servants while they packed up."

"Perhaps she had some attraction there," suggested the Colonel, with an
anxiety which might have been obvious to a more skilled observer.

"Attraction! What do you mean?" asked Porson.

"Mean, you old goose? Why, what should I mean? A young man, of course."

"Oh! I see. No, I am sure it was nothing of that sort. Mary won't be
bothered with young men. She is too lazy; she just looks over their
heads till they get tired and go away. I am sure it was the packing,
or, perhaps, the party. But what are you staring at, Colonel? Is there
anything wrong?"

"No, no; only that wonderful window of yours--the one filled with
bottle-glass--which always reminds me of a bull's-eye lantern standing
on a preserved-beef tin, or the top of a toy lighthouse."

Porson peered at the offending window through his spectacles.

"Certainly, now you mention it, it does look a little odd from here," he
said; "naked, rather. You said so before, you remember, and I told them
to plant the shrubs; but while I was away they let every one of the poor
things die. I will ask my architect, Jenkins, if he can't do anything;
it might be pulled down, perhaps."

"Better leave it alone," said the Colonel, with a sniff. "If I know
anything of Jenkins he'd only put up something worse. I tell you, John,
that where bricks and mortar are concerned that man's a moral monst