I did as I was bidden. I found a pretty cottage with a lawn running down to the stream, and a perfect jungle of guelder-rose and lilac flanking the path. The back door stood open, and a grave butler was awaiting me.

“Come this way, sir,” he said, and he led me along a passage and up a back staircase to a pleasant bedroom looking towards the river. There I found a complete outfit laid out for me⁠—dress clothes with all the fixings, a brown flannel suit, shirts, collars, ties, shaving things and hairbrushes, even a pair of patent shoes. “Sir Walter thought as how Mr. Reggie’s things would fit you, Sir,” said the butler. “He keeps some clothes ’ere, for he comes regular on the weekends. There’s a bathroom next door, and I’ve prepared a ’ot bath. Dinner in ’alf an hour, Sir. You’ll ’ear the gong.”