`He didn't say anything about pudding,' said Hugh, `--and here's the Square,' as they turned a corner and came into sight of the `eligible apartments'.

`It is a Square!' was Balbus's first cry of delight, as he gazed around him. `Beautiful! Beau-ti-ful! Equilateral! And rectangular!'

The boys looked round with less enthusiasm. `Number Nine is the first with a card,' said prosaic Lambert; but Balbus would not so soon awake from his dream of beauty.

`See, boys!' he cried. `Twenty doors on a side! What symmetry! Each side divided into twenty-one equal parts! It's delicious!'

`Shall I knock, or ring?' said Hugh, looking in some perplexity at a square brass plate which bore the simple inscription, `RING ALSO'.

`Both,' said Balbus. `That's an Ellipsis, my boy. Did you never see an Ellipsis before?'

`I couldn't hardly read it,' said Hugh evasively. `It's no good having an Ellipsis, if they don't keep it clean.'

`Which there is one room, gentlemen,' said the smiling landlady. `And a sweet room too! As snug a little back-room--'

`We will see it,' said Balbus gloomily, as they followed her in. `I knew how it would be! One room in each house! No view, I suppose?'

`Which indeed there is, gentlemen!' the landlady indignantly protested, as she drew up the blind, and indicated the back-garden.

`Cabbages, I perceive,' said Balbus. `Well, they're green, at any rate.'

`Which the greens at the shops,' their hostess explained, `are by no means dependable upon. Here you has them on the premises, and of the best.'

`Does the window open?' was always Balbus's first question in testing a lodging: and, `Does the chimney smoke?' his second. Satisfied on all points, he secured the refusal of the room, and they moved on to Number Twenty-five.

This landlady was grave and stern. `I've nobbut one room left,' she told them: `and it gives on the back- gyardin.'

`But there are cabbages?' Balbus suggested.

The landlady visibly relented. `There is, sir,' she said: `and good ones, though I say it as shouldn't. We ca'n't rely on the shops for greens. So we grows them ourselves.'

`A singular advantage,' said Balbus; and, after the usual questions, they went on to Fifty-two.

`And I'd gladly accommodate you all, if I could,' was the greeting that met them. `We are but mortal' (`Irrelevant!' muttered Balbus), `and I've let all my rooms but one.'

`Which one is a back-room, I perceive,' said Balbus: `and looking out on--on cabbages, I presume?'

`Yes, indeed, sir!' said their hostess. `Whatever other folks may do, we grows our own. For the shops--'

`An excellent arrangement!' Balbus interrupted. `Then one can really depend on their being good. Does the window open?'