I'm going to fetch my bath and I'll have it filled in a
jiffy. You'll feel all right after a hot soak."

He went out, leaving Toni, very wet and uncomfortable, in the middle of
the floor. In a minute he returned, dragging after him a good-sized
bath, filled to the brim with towels of every description.

"Now, I'll put it here, in front of the fire." He worked as he spoke.
"And if I fill these two big cans there'll be enough water. What a
blessing Mrs. Swastika kept a good fire to-day."

"Mrs. Swastika?" In the midst of her discomfiture Toni thought the name
odd.

"Oh, that's not her real name." He filled the cans vigorously. "She is
really Swanson or Swanage or something like that--but I never know what
it is, so I call her Swastika. She is rather like the individual in the
'Hunting of the Snark,' who 'answered to Hi or to any loud cry,' but
it's handy having a name to call her by sometimes."

He broke off in his nonsense and disappeared abruptly, leaving Toni
wondering whether she was intended to begin her ablutions or no. Luckily
she decided to wait a moment, and was glad she had done so when her host
returned, bearing in his arms some garments, which he put down on a
chair rather apologetically.

"I'm really most awfully sorry, Mrs. Rose, but I've no feminine
fripperies of any sort! But if you can possibly make these things do for
a bit, I'll send a boy on a bicycle down to your place and tell them to
put together some clothes for you."

"Oh, will you?" Toni was beginning to find her soaked garments rather
unpleasantly chilly. "I live at Greenriver--oh, you know?--and if you
tell the housekeeper to send me everything, she'll know what I want."

"Very well." He had been busying himself with a little saucepan over the
fire as she spoke, and now he handed her a glass containing some mulled
wine.

"I'll dispatch a lad at once--in the meantime please drink this--it's
quite harmless, I assure you!"

As she took the glass he hurried to the door, and went out, pulling it
carefully to after him.

"Pull down the blind and lock the door," he commanded her through the
keyhole. "The back door is locked already, so you are quite safe."

As soon as he was gone, and her privacy assured, Toni lost no time in
doing as he bade her; and it certainly was a relief to slip out of her
clinging garments and plunge into the hot water waiting for her. She did
not waste time, remembering his commands; but when it came to a questio