As he mounted it the staircase grew stuffier and stuffier, but the condition of the staircarpet improved.  Mr. Prohack hated the place, and at once determined to fight powerfully against Sissie’s declared intention of starting married life in her husband’s bachelor-flat, for the sake of economy.  He would force the pair, if necessary, to accept from him a flat rent-free, or he would even purchase for them one of those bijou residences of which he had heard tell.  He little dreamed that this very house had once been described as a bijou residence.  The third floor landing was terribly small and dark, and Mr. Prohack could scarcely decipher the name of his future son-in-law on the shabby name-plate.

“This den would be dear at elevenpence three farthings a year,” said he to himself, and was annoyed because for months he had been picturing the elegant Oswald as the inhabitant of something orientally and impeccably luxurious, and he wondered that his women, as a rule so critical, had breathed no word of the flat’s deplorable approaches.

He rang the bell, and the bell made a violent and horrid sound, which could scarcely fail to be heard throughout the remainder of the house.  No answer!  Ozzie had gone.  He descended the stairs, and on the second-floor landing saw an old lady putting down a mat in front of an open door.  The old lady’s hair was in curl-papers.

“I suppose,” he ventured, raising his hat.  “I suppose you don’t happen to know whether Mr. Morfey has gone out?”

The old lady scanned him before replying.

“He can’t be gone out,” she answered.  “He’s just been sweeping his floor enough to wake the dead.”

“Sweeping his floor!” exclaimed Mr. Prohack, shocked, thunderstruck.  “I understood these were service flats.”

“So they are—­in a way, but the housekeeper never gets up to this floor before half past twelve; so it can’t be the housekeeper.  Besides, she’s gone out for me.”

“Thank you,” said Mr. Prohack, and remounted the staircase.  His blood was up.  He would know the worst about the elegant Oswald, even if he had to beat the door down.  He was, however, saved from this extreme measure, for when he aimlessly pushed against Oswald’s door it opened.

He beheld a narrow passage, which in the matter of its decoration certainly did present a Japanese aspect to Mr. Prohack, who, however, had never been to Japan.  Two doors gave off the obscure corridor.  One of these doors was open, and in the doorway could be seen the latter half of a woman and the forward half of a carpet-brush.  She was evidently brushing the carpet of a room and gradually coming out of the room and into the passage.  She wore a large blue pinafore apron, and she was so absorbed in her business that the advent of Mr. Prohack passed quite unnoticed by her.  Mr. Prohack waited.  More of the woman appeared, and at last the whole of her.  She felt, rather than saw, the presence of a man at the entrance, and she looked up, transfixed.  A deep blush travelled over all her features.