When Willie Willders knocked at Tom Tippet’s door, at the top of the house, a rich jovial¹ bass² voice cried, “Come in.” So Willie went in, and stood before a stout³ old gentleman, whose voluminous whiskers, meeting below his chin, made ample amends⁴ for the total absence of hair from the top of his head.

 

Mr Tippet stood, without coat or vest, and with his braces⁵ tied round his waist, at a carpenter’s bench, holding a saw in his right hand, and a piece of wood in his left.

 

“Well, my lad, what’s your business?” he inquired in the voice of a stentor, and with the beaming smile of an elderly cherub⁶.

 

“Please, sir, a note—from a lady.”

 

“I wish your message had been verbal, boy. It’s so difficult to read ladies’ hands; they’re so abominably⁷ angular, and—where are my specs? I’ve a mind to have ’em screw-nailed to my nose. Ah! here they are.”

 

He found them under a jack-plane and a mass of shavings; put them on and read the note, while Willie took the opportunity of observing that Mr Tippet’s room was a drawing-room, parlour, dining-room, workshop, and old curiosity-shop, all in one. A half-open door revealed the fact that an inner chamber⁸ contained Mr Tippet’s bed, and an indescribable mass of machinery⁹ and models in every stage of progression, and covered with dust, more or less thick in exact proportion to their respective ages. A dog and cat lay side by side on the

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