It was early in the afternoon the same day, the last Thursday of June. The rain of the night before had been general in the South of England. It had fallen heavily in London, and washed and freshened the dusty, parched streets. Now all London capable of being made fresh and blithe by weather was blazing gallantly in the unclouded radiance of summer. Even Chetwynd Street, a third rate thoroughfare of the less delectable and low-lying part of Westminster, looked gay in comparison with its usual squalor, for it had been scoured clean and sweetened by the waters of Heaven. The wind, and the rain, and the sun of Heaven, were all the friends Chetwynd Street seemed to have. Man had built it. It was man's own, and man seemed to despise his handiwork, and neglect his duty towards what he had made.

Few civilians with good clothes and sound boots visited Chetwynd Street. Policemen go everywhere, and were to be seen in this street now and then, and soldiers often strayed into it, for they are common in all the region. But although the publicans and pawnbrokers of the thoroughfare were well-to-do people, they did not put their wealth upon their backs. It would have been considered ostentatious for ordinary mortals to wear broadcloth within the precincts of the street. The sumptuary laws of the place forbade broadcloth for every-day wear to all except clergymen, doctors, and undertakers. On Sundays, or festivals, such as marriages and funerals, broad-cloth might be worn by the prosperous tradespeople without exciting anger or reproach.

The two most prosperous shopkeepers in the place were Mr. Williams, landlord of the Hanover public house, at the corner of Welbeck Place, leading to Welbeck Mews, and Mr. Forbes, baker, at the opposite corner of Welbeck Place. Mr. Williams's house was all glitter and brightness on the ground floor. He had two large plate-glass windows, divided only by a green and gilt iron pillar, looking into Chetwynd Street, and two large plate glass windows, divided only by a green and gilt iron pillar, looking into Welbeck Place. The door of Mr. Williams's house faced Chetwynd Street. Mr. Forbes was not so lavish of glass or gaslight as his neighbour, of the Hanover. His only window on the shop-floor, looking into Chetwynd Street, was composed of panes of crown glass of moderate size. In Welbeck Place, on the ground floor, he had a blank wall, and farther up the Place, a modest door. In Chetwynd Street, beyond the shop door, was another door belonging to him; the door to the staircase and dwelling part of the house above the shop. The door in Welbeck Place led also to the base of the staircase, and to the bakehouse at the rear. The side door was not used for business purposes of the bakery. The back of the bakehouse at the rear stood in Welbeck Mews, and here was a door through which Mr. Forbes's flour and coal came in and loaves went out. Mr. Forbes had several bakeries in the neighbourhood. He did not reside in the upper part of his house in Chetwynd Street. He used the first floor as a warehouse. He stored all kinds of odds and ends here, including empty sacks, and sometimes flour. One of the rooms he had used as an office, but gave it up, and now kept it locked, idle. It was not easy to let the upper parts of houses to respectable people in this street. It would not suit his business to let the house in tenements to any lodgers who might offer.

For the second floor he had a most respectable tenant, who paid his rent with punctuality, and gave no trouble at all. There were three rooms on the second or top floor. A sitting-room, a bed-room, and a workshop. The sitting-room was farthest from Welbeck Place, being over the hall and part of the shop. The bed-room was over the middle section of the shop. The work-room was at the eastern end of the house. The bed-room looked into Chetwynd Street. The sitting-room looked into the same street. The work-shop looked into Welbeck Place. The bed-room and sitting-room were immediately over that part of the house used by Mr. Forbes as a store or lumber room. The workshop on the top floor was directly over what once served as an office for the baker, and was now locked up.

The man and his wife in charge of the business slept in the bakehouse at the back which opened into the mews. The only person sleeping in the house proper was the tenant of the second floor. At the top of the staircase, on the second floor, there was a stout door, which could be locked on either side, so that the tenant had a flat all to himself, and was as independent as if he owned a whole house. In the matter of doors, he was rather better off than his neighbours, who had whole houses; for he had, first of all, the door of his own flat at the top of the stairs, and was allowed a key for the outer door into Chetwynd Street, and one for the door into Welbeck Place. For the door at the back, that one from the bakehouse into the mews, he had not been given a key by the landlord, nor did he ask for one. When something was said about it on his taking the place, he laughed, and declared, "Two entrances to my castle are enough for a man of my inches."

The tenant of the top floor of the bakery was Mr. Oscar Leigh. The room over the hall was his bed-room: the room over the store was his sitting-room; the room looking into Welbeck Place was his workshop.

Mr. Oscar Leigh made an unclassified exception to the rule of not wearing broad cloth in Chetwynd Street. He never was seen there in anything else. The residents took no offence at his glossy black frock-coat. The extreme oddness of his figure served as an apology for his infringement upon the rules. In Chetwynd Street the little man was very affable, very gallant, very popular. "Quite the gentleman," ladies of the locality who enjoyed his acquaintance declared. Among the men he was greatly respected. They believed him to be very rich, notwithstanding that he pleaded poverty for living so high up as the top floor of Forbes's bakery, and dispensing with a servant. Mrs. Bolger, the old charwoman, came in the morning and got him his breakfast, and tidied his rooms. That is she tidied the sitting-room and bed-room. No one had ever been admitted to the workshop. Mrs. Bolger left about noon, and that was all the attendance Mr. Leigh needed for the day. He got his other meals out of his lodgings.

The men of the district in addition to believing him rich credited him with universal knowledge. "Mr. Leigh," they said, "knew everything." They always spoke of him as "Mr." Leigh because they were sure he had money. If they believed him to be poor or only comfortable they would have called him little Leigh. His appearance was so uncommon they readily endowed him with supernatural powers. But upon the whole they held his presence among them as a compliment to their own worth, and a circumstance for congratulation, for his conversation when unintelligible seemed to do no one harm, when intelligible was pleasant, and he was free with his society, his talk, and his money.

That Thursday afternoon he walked slowly along Chetwynd Street from the eastern end, nodding pleasantly to those he knew slightly, and exchanging cheerful greetings with those he knew better. When he came to the Hanover public-house, lying between him and his own home, he entered, and, keeping to the right down a short passage, found himself in the private bar.

The Hanover was immeasurably the finest public-house in the neighbourhood. The common bar was plain and rough, and frequented by very plain and rough folk; but the private bar was fitted in mahogany and polished white metal. There no drink of less price than twopence was served, and people in the neighbourhood thought it quite genteel and select. A general feeling prevailed among the men who frequented the private bar of the "Hanover" that the only difference between the best West End club and it was that in the former you got more display, finer furniture, and a bigger room; but that for excellence of liquor and company the latter was the better of the two. It was a well-known fact that Mr. Jacobs, the greengrocer who came from Sloane Street to get three-pennyworth of the famous Hanover rum hot, never smoked anything less than cigars which he bought cheap of his friend, Mr. Isaacs, at sixpence each. It was a custom for the frequenters in turn to say now and then to Mr. Jacobs, "That's a good cigar, Mr. Jacobs; my word, a good cigar." At which challenge Mr. Jacobs became grave, took the cigar out of his mouth and looked at it carefully while he held it as though making up his mind about its merits, and then said "Ay, sir; pretty fair-pretty fair," or other modest words to that effect. He spoke almost carelessly at such times, as though he had something else on his mind. About once a month the thought he was reserving followed and he added: "I bought a case of them from my friend, Isaacs of Bond Street. They come to about sixpence each." After this he would put his cigar back into his mouth, roll it round carelessly between his lips, and take no more heed of it than if he had bought it for twopence across the counter.

When Mr. Oscar Leigh found himself in the private bar, neither Mr. Jacobs nor anyone else was there. Behind the bar in his shirt-sleeves was the potman who attended to the ordinary customers, and Mr. Williams, the proprietor, in a tweed coat of dark and sober hue.

"Good afternoon, Mr. Williams," said the new-comer, wriggling up on a high cane-seated stool, pulling out a white handkerchief and rubbing his face vigorously, puffing loudly the while.

"Good afternoon, Mr. Leigh," said the landlord in a gracious and pleasant voice. "Very hot walking out of doors."

"Very. Will you have a brandy-a split?"

"It's almost too hot. But I will for the sake of company, as you are kind enough to ask me."

The landlord busied himself getting the drinks, and then set them on the counter. Mr. Leigh took his up, nodded to Williams, saying laconically, "Health," to which the other responded in due form. The hunchback drained his glass at one draught, the landlord sipped his.

"I wanted that badly," said Leigh. "It's good stuff. Anything wrong?" "Well, Mr. Williams, it is my breakfast and dinner-up to this."

"Ah. That's bad. Why didn't you get your breakfast. A man isn't any good unless he eats a hearty breakfast, I say. What's the matter, Mr. Leigh. Anything wrong down in the country?"

"No, no. I feel better already. As you say, that's fine brandy. Give me another. I'm tired. I've had such a morning. I feel better, a good deal better. Isn't it hot?"

"Blazing. So you have had a busy morning?"

"Yes. Oh, very busy morning, Mr. Williams, No breakfast yet, but this," tapping the second glass of brandy and soda. "I must be careful not to knock up my digestion, Mr. Williams. When a man's digestion is upset he isn't fit for figures, for calculations, you know. It takes a man all his time, and the coolest head he can saw off a brass monkey, to make calculations such as I deal in."

"You're a wonderful man, and I always say it." Mr. Williams was a personable, good-looking man, with a large white face and lardy skin. He believed that Mr. Leigh knew a vast number of things, and that he himself had a great reserve of solid wisdom which, for reasons undefined to himself, he kept inactive for his own secret pleasure, as a man might hoard a priceless jewel, gloating over the mere sense of possession. He had a firm conviction that if it were only possible to mould Mr. Leigh's mind and his own into one, the compound might be trusted to perform prodigies, always provided that Mr. Leigh had little or nothing to do with the direction of its activities.

Up to this point of the conversation it had been obvious the two men were not speaking freely. Williams was hesitating and laconic beyond his custom; Leigh was too vivacious, tired, exhausted. During the pauses of their talk the pair frequently looked at one another in a way which would have provoked enquiry.

Mr. Williams at last made a backward jerk of his head at the potman, and then a sideway nod of his head towards the door leading into the bar-parlour. The gesture meant plainly, "Shall I get rid of him?"

Leigh nodded quickly and cordially.

"Tom," said the landlord, turning fully round and putting his back against the bar, "the bitter is off. Go down and put on another."

"Right, sir," said Tom, as he hurried away.

As soon as he was out of view, and before he could be heard among the casks and pipes, Mr. Williams turned round and said, leaning over the counter and speaking in a whisper: "He's gone. No one can hear now."

Mr. Leigh sprinkled some eau-de-cologne from a tiny silver flask in his palm, buried his face in his hands and inhaled the perfume greedily. "Hah! That is so refreshing. Hah!" The long lean hands, with the glossy shining black hairs, shook as he held them an inch from his face. The withdrawal of the potman seemed to have relieved him of restraint.

"Well," he said, laying both his thumbs on the pewter top of the counter, and pressing hard with his forefingers under the leaf of the counter, "you were saying, Williams-?" He looked into the face of the other with quick blinking eyes and swayed his misshapen body slowly to and fro.

"I wasn't saying anything at all," said the landlord, raising his black, thin, smooth eyebrows half-way up his pallid, smooth, greasy forehead.

"I know," whispered Leigh eagerly. He now drew himself up close to the counter "I meant what you were going to say. Did you watch?" keenly and anxiously.

"I did."

"At between twelve and one?"

"Yes."

"And did you see anything?" tremulously.

"I did," stolidly.

"What? Tell me what you saw?"

"You told me a man was to come and wind up your clock, as near to twelve as could be, and you asked me to watch him, and keep an eye on him, to time his coming, and see that he was sharp to his hour and that he wound up the machinery by the left-hand lever close to the window."

"Quite right, quite right. I wanted to find out if the fellow would be punctual and do my work for me while I was away in the country, down in Millway. Did you see him come? Did you see him come in through the shafts and straps and chains?" The blinking of the eyes had now ceased and Leigh was staring fixedly, with dark devouring eyes upon the pallid, lardy, stolid face of the publican.

"No, I did not see him come. The window," pointing up to the top window of the house at the opposite corner of the road, "was dark at twelve by our clock."

"By your clock. But your clock is always five minutes fast, isn't it? You didn't forget your clock is always five minutes fast?"

"No, I did not forget that. Our clock is fast to allow us to clear the house at closing time. But I thought he might be a few minutes too soon."

"He couldn't. He couldn't be a minute too soon. He couldn't be a second too soon. He couldn't be the ten thousandth part of a second too soon."

Williams smiled slightly. "Couldn't be a second too soon, Mr. Leigh! What's a second? Why that!" He tapped his hand on the pewter top of the counter before and after saying the word "that."

"Let me tell you, Mr. Williams, he couldn't have been there the one millionth part of a second before the stroke of twelve. But go on. Go on. I am all anxiety to hear if he was punctual. Tell me what you did see." His eyes were blazing with haste.

"Well, you are a strange man, and a positive man too. At twelve by my clock the room was dark. We were very busy then. I looked up again at six minutes past twelve by my clock here, a minute past twelve by my own watch, which I always keep right by Greenwich, and it's a good chronometer, as you know-"

"Yes, yes," interrupted the little man hastily. "It's a good watch. Go on!"

"Light was in the room then. A dull light such as you have when you're at work."

"Yes, dim on account of my weak eyes. And by the light you saw-?"

"I saw the man sitting in your place, and in a few seconds he began to wind up the machinery by the lever on the left near the window."

"You saw him working at the lever?" in a voice almost inaudible.

"Yes."

"You saw him often between that and closing time? between that and half-past twelve?"

"Well, yes, I may say often. Three or four times anyway."

"And each time he was winding up the machinery?"

"Now and then."

"Hah! Only now and then."

"About as often as you yourself would, it seemed to me."

"And, tell me, did you see his face. Did he waste any of his precious time gaping out of the window into the bar?"

"He turned his head towards the window only once, while I was watching, and I saw him plain enough."

"What was he like? Very like me?"

"Like you, Mr. Leigh! Not he! Not a bit like you! Stop, are you trying if I am speaking the truth?" Williams became suddenly suspicious, ready to resent any imputation upon his word.

"No, no, no. My dear Williams. Nothing of the kind, I assure you. Only I am most desirous to know all facts, all you saw. You know how well I have guarded the secrets of my great clock. I am most anxious that no one but this man who wound the clock for me last night should learn anything about it. Suppose he let several people into the room, I should have all my secrets pried into and made common property."

"And can't he tell everybody if he cares to betray you?"

"Not very well. He cannot. He is deaf and dumb, and can't write," with a triumphant smile. "Describe what the man you saw was like."

"Well, you are a wonderful man, Mr. Leigh. He was a broad-shouldered big man with fair hair and beard. He wore a round hat the whole time, and, like you, sat very steady when he was not winding up.

"That's he! That's he to the life! I told him how to sit. I showed him how to sit. And tell me, when closing time came he stood up and wriggled out of the clock?"

"I did not see. We were shut a minute before half-past twelve by my own watch. I kept my eyes on him until half-past twelve. He must have turned out the light before he got up, for the gas went out at half-past twelve, just as he stopped working the lever."

"Yes. And did you watch a while after, to see there was no danger of fire?"

"Yes, a minute or two, but all kept dark and I knew he was gone."

"Hah! Thank you, very much, Williams. I am very, very much obliged to you."

"Oh, it's nothing."

"Williams, it's a great deal. If you want to do me another favour say nothing about the matter. I don't want anyone to know this man was in my workshop. A lot of curious and envious thieves would gather round him and try to get some of my secrets out of him."

"All right. I'll say nothing."

Leigh took out his little silver flask of eau-de-cologne, moistened his hands with the perfume and drew the pungent fragrant vapour noisily into his nose. "So refreshing," he whispered audibly, "So refreshing." Then lifting his face out of his hands he held the flask toward the landlord, saying, "Try some. It's most refreshing."

"Pah, no," said Williams with a gesture of scorn, "I never touch such stuff."

"Hah! If you were like me you would. If you were always reeking with oil, steeping in the fish-oil of machines, you'd be glad enough to take the smell of it out of your nose with any perfume. I told you I have been busy this morning. The want of my breakfast, and the business I was on, pretty nearly knocked me up. Bah! The dust of that job is in my throat still."

"Drink up your brandy and soda and have another with me," said the landlord encouragingly.

"No, no. I won't have any more. Hah! it was a dusty job."

"What was it, Mr. Leigh, may I ask?"

"Well, you have done me a good turn in keeping your eye on that fellow for me, and you're going to do me another good turn by saying nothing about it; so I'll tell you. Have you ever heard anything of Albertus Magnus?"

"Albertus Magnums? No, I never heard of magnums of that brand."

"Hah! 'Tisn't a wine, but a man. Albertus Magnus was a man who studied magic, one of the greatest of the magicians of old. He attributes wonderful powers to the powdered asphaltum of mummies."

"Oh, magnums of Mumm? Of course I have heard of magnums of Mumm."

"No! I don't mean wine; the mummy coffins were filled with a kind of pitch, and Albertus attributes wonderful powers to this old pitch which the ancient Egyptians poured hot over the dead. It was used by the Egyptians to prevent the ravages of time upon the faces of the dead. Now, I am going to paint the dials of my clock with mummy-pitch to prevent time ravaging the faces of my clock. Do you see? Hah!"

"I always said, Mr. Leigh, that you were a wonderful, a most wonderful man." Williams's mind had been plunged by the words of the other into a dense mist. He could see nothing and he was sure there must be a wonderfully profound meaning in the speaker's words because he could make nothing of them.

"And to-day I bought a mummy, the mummy of a great Egyptian prince, for I must have good mummy asphaltum to preserve the faces of my clock from the influence of time. Asphaltum is a bituminous pitch, as you know," said Leigh, getting down off the high stool and preening himself like a bedraggled raven.

By this time Williams began to realize that the dwarf had, for some reason or other, with a view to use in some unknown way, become possessed of a mummified prince. He had never before spoken to any one who owned a mummy; he knew, by report, that such things were to be seen in the British Museum, but he had never been inside the walls of that crushing-looking fane of history. It was utterly impossible for him to imagine any way in which a mummy could be employed; but this only went to prove how necessary to Leigh a mummy must be. Now that he came to think of the matter he found himself surprised Leigh had not had a mummy long ago. His face relaxed into a smile. "And what are you going to do with his royal highness?" he asked, chuckling.

"I only want the asphaltum as a pigment."

"But what are you going to do with his royal highness?" he repeated, being slow to relinquish this cleverness of his, which to him had the rare glory of a joke.

"Oh," said Leigh, preparing to go, "I am told they burn beautifully. What do you say to burning him as a guy in Welbeck Place on the fifth of November? Ha-ha-ha!" and with a harsh laugh the little man hurried out of the Hanover, leaving Mr. Williams pleased and puzzled.