“I’ll do it!” he cried, with the resolute air of an explorer contemplating the Antarctic.  “The world is too much with me.  I will recover my true personality in the wilderness.  I will commune with my own heart and be still!”

He rang the bell hurriedly, lest his purpose should weaken.

“Oh, Mrs. Wilson,” he said carelessly, “I am going away for a few days.”

“Visiting at some gentleman’s seat to shoot the gamebirds, I make no doubt,” answered the landlady.

“Why, no; not precisely that,” said Mr. Clarkson.  “The fact is, Mr. Davies, a literary friend of mine—­quite the best authority on Jacobean verse—­offers me his house, just by way of a joke.  The house will be empty, and he says he only wants me to defend his notes on the History of the Masque from burglary.  I shall take him at his word.”

“You alone in a house, sir?  There’s a thing!” exclaimed the landlady.

“A thing to be thankful for,” Mr. Clarkson replied.  “George Sand always longed to inhabit an empty house.”

“Mr. Sand’s neither here nor there,” answered the landlady firmly.  “But you’re not fit, sir, begging your pardon.  Unless a person comes in the morning to do for you.”

“I shall prefer complete solitude,” said Mr. Clarkson.  “The calm of the uninterrupted morning has for me the greatest attraction.”

“You’ll excuse me mentioning such things,” she continued, “but there’s the washing-up and bed-making.”

“Excellent athletic exercises!” cried Mr. Clarkson.  “In Xenophon’s charming picture of married life we see the model husband instructing the young wife to leave off painting and adorning herself, and to seek the true beauty of health and strength by housework and turning beds.”

“There’s many on us had ought to be beauties, then, without paint nor yet powder,” said the landlady, turning away with a little sigh.  And when Mr. Clarkson drove off that evening with his bag, she stood by the railings and said to the lady next door:  “There goes my gentleman, and him no more fit to do for hisself than a babe unborn, and no more idea of cooking than a crocodile!”

The question of cooking did not occur to Mr. Clarkson till he had entered the semi-detached suburban residence with his friend’s latchkey, groped about for the electric lights, and discovered there was nothing to eat in the house, whereas he was accustomed to a biscuit or two and a little whisky and soda before going to bed.

“Never mind,” he thought.  “Enterprise implies sacrifice, and hunger will be a new experience.  I can buy something for breakfast in the morning.”

So he spent a placid hour in reading the titles of his friend’s books, and then retired to the bedroom prepared for him.