oman, who had drawn back the
door gingerly as if she had expected some one else on possibly a hostile
mission, for an expression of relief came over her face when she saw
only me; and then, ushering me into a little room leading out of the
hall, she left me there, telling me to sit down. I had brought my box
in with me, you may be sure, otherwise this feat would have been
impossible, as there was not a single chair in the apartment, the major
portion of the furniture of the house, as I subsequently learnt, having
been seized by the sheriff's officers for rent.

My first interview with Doctor Hellyer did not last very long; but it
certainly was to the point, so far as it went towards impressing me with
his ponderous personality, for he was a big, smooth-faced, fat, oily
man, with a crafty look in his little twinkling eyes.

"Ah, Leigh--ah," said he on coming, presently, into the room, "you've
come at last--ah?"

This "ah-ing" of his was a confirmed habit, for he never seemed able to
begin or end a sentence without dragging in the ejaculation.

"Yes, sir," I replied, rising up from my box, and taking off my cap
politely.

"Ah--I've had a nice character of you from your aunt, my dear young
gentleman," he proceeded, blinking his little ferret-like eyes
furiously, and with a dubious sort of grin expanding his wide mouth,
which was furnished with a set of teeth like a shark's. "She tells me--
ah--Master Leigh, that you are rude, and bold, and bad, and
disobedient--ah--and that I shall have to keep a strict watch over your
conduct; but I think--ah--you will find yourself in good hands here, my
dee-er boy, really in good hands at last--ah!" and, smiling an ogreish
smile, he rubbed the palms of the said members together up and down and
over one another in a circular way as if he were kneading up a little
ball of putty within them, and I was that ball!

CHAPTER THREE.

MY CHUM.

Of course, as you may suppose, I offered no reply to this characteristic
introductory address of Dr Hellyer, although the allusion he made to
Aunt Matilda's treachery in trying to prejudice him against me--an
attempt which, apparently, was as successful as it was intended to be--
made me boil over with suppressed passion. It was just like her, I
thought! I had hoped, on leaving Tapioca Villa, to have escaped the
influence of her spiteful malignity; and yet here, at a distance, it was
pursuing me still, when I really believed myself for e