Paul Kelver. Джером К. Джером

in lavender and maple green—she is fond of soft tones—and the window looks out upon the gardens. There we will put her writing-table.”

      My own bedroom was on the third floor, a sunny little room.

      “You will be quiet here,” said my father, “and we can shut out the bed and the washstand with a screen.”

      Later, I came to occupy it; though its rent—eight and sixpence a week, including attendance—was somewhat more than at the time I ought to have afforded. Nevertheless, I adventured it, taking the opportunity of being an inmate of the house to refurnish it, unknown to my stout landlady, in later Queen Anne style, putting a neat brass plate with my father's name upon the door. “Luke Kelver, Solicitor. Office hours, 10 till 4.” A medical student thought he occupied my mother's boudoir. He was a dull dog, full of tiresome talk. But I made acquaintanceship with him; and often of an evening would smoke my pipe there in silence while pretending to be listening to his monotonous brag.

      The poor thing! he had no idea that he was only a foolish ghost; that his walls, seemingly covered with coarse-coloured prints of wooden-looking horses, simpering ballet girls and petrified prize-fighters, were in reality a delicate tone of lavender and maple green; that at her writing-table in the sunlit window sat my mother, her soft curls curtaining her quiet face.