own like this," said I. "Anyhow, I'll ring and
see."

I did ring, but nobody answered, of course, and I had to yell over the
top of the stairs for five minutes, when the Ten of Clubs appeared,
looking much injured, having evidently believed that he was rid of us
for the night.

He almost wept in his earnest endeavours to assure us that the bedding
was as dry and warm as the down on a swan's breast; but when Maida
insisted on warming-pans, he admitted that they existed in the house.

We were sleepy, but having ordered warming-pans which might stalk in at
any moment, we could not well begin to undress until they had been
produced and manipulated. We waited an hour, until we were nodding in
our chairs, and all started from a troubled doze at the sound of loud
knocking at the door.

In the passage outside stood four sad-faced young men of the card tribe,
bearing two large and extraordinary implements. One looked like a couple
of kitchen chairs lashed together foot to foot, to make a cage, or
frame, the space between being lined with sheets of metal. The other was
a great copper dish with big enough holes pricked in the cover to show
the red glow from a quantity of acrid smelling wood-ashes.

All four came into the room, solemn and silent, while we watched them,
struck dumb with amazement.

They set down the things on the floor, turned open the larger bed of the
two, which Mamma and I were to share, put in the huge frame, shoved the
copper bowl inside it, as a cook would shove a dish into the oven, and
replaced the covering. Then they stood and gravely waited for ten or
fifteen minutes, till they thought that the dampness had been cooked
out. We stood by also, momentarily expecting to see the bed break into
flames; but nothing happened, except rather a nice, hot smell. At last,
with one accord they flew at the blankets, turned them down, took out
dish and frame, and repeated the same process with Maida's narrow bunk.

It took us nearly an hour afterwards to get ready for bed, but when we
crept in at last it was like cuddling down in a hot bird's-nest, odorous
of cooked moss.

In the daytime we hadn't noticed that the hotel was particularly noisy,
though it apparently had most other vices; but ten o'clock seemed the
hour when all the activities of the house and town began.

Church bells boomed; electric bells rang; myriads of heavy carts rolled
through the stone-paved square; people sang, whistled, laughed,
gossipp