on the wall with a dazzling crinkled tin reflector. This was the only thing that was new, and it cost tenpence halfpenny. All the rest of the things together cost twenty-six shillings and sevenpence halfpenny, and I think they were cheap.
But they seemed very poor and very little of them when they were dumped down in the front room. The bed especially looked far from its best—a mere heap of loose iron.
"And we ain't got our droring-room suit, neither," said Mr. Beale. "Lady's and gent's easy-chairs, four hoccasionals, pianner, and foomed oak booreau."
"Curtains," said Dickie—"white curtains for the parlour and short blinds everywhere else. I'll go and get 'em while you clean the winders. That old shirt of mine. It won't hang through another washing. Clean 'em with that."
"You don't give your orders, neither," said Beale contentedly.
The curtains and a penn'orth of tacks, a hammer borrowed from a neighbour, and an hour's cheerful work completed the fortification of the Englishman's house against the inquisitiveness of passers-by. But the landlord frowned anxiously as he went past the house.
"Don't like all that white curtain," he told himself; "not much be'ind it, if you ask me. People don't go to that extreme in Nottingham lace without there's something to hide—a house full of emptiness, most likely."
Inside Dickie was telling a very astonished
