HE EXPLAINS HIMSELF Giles Toller's miserly nature had offered to his lodger shelter from wind and rain, and the furniture absolutely necessary to make a bedroom habitable--and nothing more.

There was no carpet on the floor, no paper on the walls, no ceiling to hide the rafters of the roof.

The chair that I sat on was the one chair in the room; the man whose guest I had rashly consented to be found a seat on his bed.

Upon his table I saw pens and pencils, paper and ink, and a battered brass candlestick with a common tallow candle in it.

His changes of clothing were flung on the bed; his money was left on the unpainted wooden chimney-piece; his wretched little morsel of looking-glass (propped up near the money) had been turned with its face to the wall.