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doing my duty, fair Helen" - he had
always called her "fair Helen" when no one was listening. "How can
I draw ordinary animals when I see these half-human monsters
staring at me all the time I am having my breakfast, my lunch, and
my dinner?" That was what Mr. Algernon had said in his own saucy
way, and that was what he repeated in a more serious, respectful
manner to his aunt, when that dear old lady had come downstairs. In
fact he had declared, quite soberly, that the beautiful animals
painted by Mr. Landseer put his eye out!
      But his aunt had been very much annoyed - in fact,
she had made him turn the pictures all back again; and as long as
he stayed there he just had to put up with what he called "those
half-human monsters." Mrs. Bunting, sitting there, thinking the
matter of Mr. Sleuth's odd behaviour over, was glad to recall that
funny incident of her long-gone youth. It seemed to prove that her
new lodger was not so strange as he appeared to be. Still, when
Bunting came in, she did not tell him the queer thing which had
happened. She told herself that she would be quite able to manage
the taking down of the pictures in the drawing-room herself.
      But before getting ready their own supper, Mr.
Sleuth's landlady went upstairs to dear away, and when on the
staircase she heard the sound of - was it talking, in the
drawing-room? Startled, she waited a moment on the landing outside
the drawing-room door, then she realised that it was only the
lodger reading aloud to himself. There was something very awful in
the words which rose and fell on her listening ears:
      "A strange woman is a narrow gate. She also lieth in
wait as for a prey, and increaseth the transgressors among
men."
      She remained where she was, her hand on the handle
of ,the door, and again there broke on her shrinking ears that
curious, high, sing-song voice, "Her house is the way to hell,
going down to the chambers of death."
      It made the listener feel quite queer. But at last
she summoned up courage, knocked, and walked in.
      "I'd better clear away, sir, had I not?" she said.
And Mr. Sleuth nodded.
      Then he got up and dosed the Book. "I think I'll go
to bed now," he said. "I am very, very tired. I've had a long and a
very weary day, Mrs. Bunting."
      After he had disappeared into the back room, Mrs.
Bunting climbed up on a chair and unhooked the pictures which had
so offended Mr. Sleuth. Each left an unsightly mark on the wall -
but that, after all, could not be helped.
      Treading softly, so that Bunting should not hear
her, she carried them down, two by two, and stood them behind her
bed.

CHAPTER IV
       M rs. Bunting woke
up the next morning feeling happier than she had felt for a very,
very long time.
      For just one moment she could not think why she felt
so different - and then she suddenly remembered.
      How comfortable it was to know that upstairs, just
over her head, lay, in the well-found bed she had bought with such
satisfaction at an auction held in a Baker Street house, a lodger
who was paying two guineas a week! Something seemed to tell her
that Mr. Sleuth would be "a permanency." In any case, it wouldn't
be her fault if he wasn't. As to his - his queerness, well, there's
always something funny in everybody. But after she had got up, and
as the morning wore itself away, Mrs. Bunting grew a little
anxious, for there came no sound at all from the new lodger's
rooms. At twelve, however, the drawing-room bell rang. Mrs. Bunting
hurried upstairs. She was painfully anxious to please and satisfy
Mr. Sleuth. His coming had only been in the nick of time to save
them from terrible disaster.
      She found her lodger up, and fully dressed. He was
sitting at the round table which occupied the middle of the
sitting-room, and his landlady's large Bible lay open before
him.
      As Mrs. Bunting came in, he looked up, and she was
troubled to see how tired and worn he seemed.
      "You did not happen," he asked, "to have