Chapter 3 - Page 2

tinkled back into the central
reservoir. On either side of the court a tall, graceful palm-tree shot
up its slender stem to break into a crown of drooping green leaves some
fifty feet above their heads. All round were a series of Moorish
arches, in jade and serpentine marble, with heavy curtains of the
deepest purple to cover the doors which lay between them. In front, to
right and to left, a broad staircase of marble, carpeted with rich thick
Smyrna rug work, led upwards to the upper storeys, which were arranged
around the central court. The temperature within was warm and yet
fresh, like the air of an English May.

"It's taken from the Alhambra," said Raffles Haw. "The palm-trees are
pretty. They strike right through the building into the ground beneath,
and their roots are all girt round with hot-water pipes. They seem to
thrive very well."

"What beautifully delicate brass-work!" cried Robert, looking up with
admiring eyes at the bright and infinitely fragile metal trellis screens
which adorned the spaces between the Moorish arches.

"It is rather neat. But it is not brass-work. Brass is not tough
enough to allow them to work it to that degree of fineness. It is gold.
But just come this way with me. You won't mind waiting while I remove
this smoke?"

He led the way to a door upon the left side of the court, which, to
Robert's surprise, swung slowly open as they approached it.
"That is a little improvement which I have adopted," remarked the master
of the house. "As you go up to a door your weight upon the planks
releases a spring which causes the hinges to revolve. Pray step in.
This is my own little sanctum, and furnished after my own heart."

If Robert expected to see some fresh exhibition of wealth and luxury he
was woefully disappointed, for he found himself in a large but bare
room, with a little iron truckle-bed in one corner, a few scattered
wooden chairs, a dingy carpet, and a large table heaped with books,
bottles, papers, and all the other _debris_ which collect around a busy
and untidy man. Motioning his visitor into a chair, Raffles Haw pulled
off his coat, and, turning up the sleeves of his coarse flannel
shirt, he began to plunge and scrub in the warm water which flowed from
a tap in the wall.

"You see how simple my own tastes are," he remarked, as he mopped his
dripping face and hair with the towel. "This is the only room in my
great house where I find myself in a congenial atmosphere. It is homely
to me. I can read here and smoke my pipe in peace. Anything like
luxury is abhorrent to me."

"Really, I should not have though it," observed Robert.

"It is