as got to to-day. Some place where the
moth don't eat clothes, I hope. Bought it at the break-up of an
ancient family who fled to Norfolk on the revocation of the Edict of
Nantes--Huguenot, of course. Years ago, years ago! Haven't looked into
it for many years, indeed, but think there's nothing there but rubbish
now."

Thus he mumbled on while he found and untied the old key. The spring
lock had grown stiff from disuse and want of oil, but at length it
turned and reopened the chest revealing the poker-work glories on the
inner side of the lid and elsewhere. Glories they were indeed, never had
I seen such artistry of the sort.

"Can't see it properly," muttered Potts, "windows want washing, haven't
been done since my wife died, and that's twenty years ago. Miss her
very much, of course, but thank God there's no spring-cleaning now. The
things I've seen broken in spring-cleaning! yes, and lost, too. It was
after one of them that I told my wife that now I understood why the
Mahomedans declare that women have no souls. When she came to understand
what I meant, which it took her a long time to do, we had a row, a
regular row, and she threw a Dresden figure at my head. Luckily I caught
it, having been a cricketer when young. Well, she's gone now, and no
doubt heaven's a tidier place than it used to be--that is, if they will
stand her rummagings there, which I doubt. Look at that Venus, ain't she
a beauty? Might have been done by Titian when his paints ran out, and
he had to take to a hot iron to express his art. What, you can't see
her well? Wait a bit and I'll get a lantern. Can't have a naked candle
here--things too valuable; no money could buy them again. My wife and
I had another row about naked candles, or it may have been a paraffin
lamp. You sit in that old prayer-stool and look at the work."

Off he went crawling down the dusky stairs and leaving me wondering
what Mrs. Potts, of whom now I heard for the first time, could have been
like. An aggravating woman, I felt sure, for upon whatever points men
differ, as to "spring-cleaning" they are all of one mind. No doubt he
was better without her, for what did that dried-up old artist want with
a wife?

Dismissing Mrs. Potts from my mind, which, to tell the truth, seemed
to have no room for her shadowy and hypothetical entity, I fell to
examining the chest. Oh! it was lovely. In two minutes the clock was
deposed and that chest became the sultana in my seraglio of beaute