I

CHAPTER II

THE COLONEL'S ROOMS

AT GREY FRIARS

HAD kept for the following day -as one sometimes

keeps a precious letter, to be opened when alone - the

rooms in which the old Pensioner lived and died.

While sketching the court, I had seen the outside walls. There, under my eyes, had been the few steps leading to the low-pitched door, which he had entered so often. The very same window had blinked at me, from under its bushy eyebrows of matted vines the same through which he had peered when waiting to catch a glimpse of Ethel or Clive. Nothing could have been more convincing, and yet, there, too, all the time staring me in the face, had been the disturbing tablet, declaring that the whole legend was a farce and a sham. That there was no Colonel Newcome- never had been any. That one, Thomas Light, a Captain in His Majesty's service, was the simon-pure and only original Colonel inhabiting that room, as could be proved not only by the records of the Charter House, mendaciously labelled and libelled by Mr. Thackeray as Grey Friars, but also by His Majesty's Army Register, in which

the full name, title, and services of this distinguished military gentleman were duly set forth.

But I would have none of it.

I had seen too many tablets in my time, laudatory and otherwise - some of most disreputable persons to be swerved from my convictions, and so the next morning I left my chauffeur, Evins (now my right-hand man), outside the gate with instructions to call for me in the late afternoon, and made my way along the open court to the rooms of Colonel Thomas Newcome.

Above the white, well-scoured steps, and just inside the doorway, seen in the sketch, there was another tablet of brass-a real one-giving the date of Mr. Thackeray's visits; and then, sharp to the left, a narrow, dark hall. I fumbled for a knocker or a bell, and, finding none rapped gently, and I must confess, rather timidly- an apologetic knock, as if to say, "impudent is no name for me, but please don't slam the door in my face until you hear me out."

"Come in," called a cheery voice, and I pushed in the door.

"I am making a series of drawings of Mr. Thackeray's haunts," I began, to a short, full-bodied man in silhouette against a window, through which the sun poured, lighting up the desk at which he sat and making an aureole of his gray hair, “and I thought you might be good enough to let me come some time when it would not disturb you, and

"Let you come!" He was on his feet in an instant, with both hands extended. "Of course you can come, and this very minute! If you had waited ten more I should have

been gone - stop until I get my hat and cane. Stay here just as long as you please; I shan't be back until near five, when we will have tea — here's the key; hang it on the nail outside when you have finished; and if a tall, lanky, hungrylooking boy raps, you can let him in - he's my nephew and tell him the jam's all out so there; and now, goodbye."

"Hold on!" I cried. "Let me get my breath. Why?" "Why what?”

"Why have you taken me in this way? I can't possibly understand how you could

"You don't have to understand. Thirty years ago, when I was a young man, I went to the States and rang the doorbell of a man in Newark, New Jersey, to whom I had a letter. He was father and mother and brother to me during the four years I spent in your country, and since that time I have never let an American pass my door, or enter it, without wanting to give him half of everything I had. I watched you from my window all yesterday morning, and after you had gone and I found out where you came from I was so disappointed I couldn't get to sleep. Don't forget about the jam, and be sure you're here for tea," and he slammed the door behind him.

To be shut up alone in a room belonging to a friend whom you have not seen for years, and whose quarters you have entered for the first time, is a queer experience. To realize that within its walls he himself had died some fifty years ago, and in the very bed at which you are looking, and that every other thing in the place is practically as he left it, adds a touch of the uncanny.