The next landlady sufficed.  She was a clean-looking German woman, rather smartly dressed; she had a fringe of flaxen curls and a voluble flow of words, for the most part recognisably English.  With this she sketched out remarks.  Fifteen shillings was her demand for a minute bedroom and a small sitting-room, separated by folding doors on the ground floor, and her personal services.  Coals were to be “sixpence a kettle,” she said—­a pretty substitute for scuttle.  She had not understood Lewisham to say he was married.  But she had no hesitation.  “Aayteen shillin’,” she said imperturbably.  “Paid furs day ich wik ...  See?” Mr. Lewisham surveyed the rooms again.  They looked clean, and the bonus tea vases, the rancid, gilt-framed oleographs, two toilet tidies used as ornaments, and the fact that the chest of drawers had been crowded out of the bedroom into the sitting-room, simply appealed to his sense of humour.  “I’ll take ’em from Saturday next,” he said.

She was sure he would like them, and proposed to give him his book forthwith.  She mentioned casually that the previous lodger had been a captain and had stayed three years. (One never hears by any chance of lodgers stopping for a shorter period.) Something happened (German) and now he kept his carriage—­apparently an outcome of his stay.  She returned with a small penny account-book, a bottle of ink and an execrable pen, wrote Lewisham’s name on the cover of this, and a receipt for eighteen shillings on the first page.  She was evidently a person of considerable business aptitude.  Lewisham paid, and the transaction terminated.  “Szhure to be gomfortable,” followed him comfortingly to the street.

Then he went on to Chelsea and interviewed a fatherly gentleman at the Vestry offices.  The fatherly gentleman was chubby-faced and spectacled, and his manner was sympathetic but business-like.  He “called back” each item of the interview, “And what can I do for you?  You wish to be married!  By licence?”

“By licence.”

“By licence!”

And so forth.  He opened a book and made neat entries of the particulars.

“The lady’s age?”

“Twenty-one.”

“A very suitable age ... for a lady.”

He advised Lewisham to get a ring, and said he would need two witnesses.

“Well—­” hesitated Lewisham.

“There is always someone about,” said the superintendent registrar.  “And they are quite used to it.”

Thursday and Friday Lewisham passed in exceedingly high spirits.  No consciousness of the practical destruction of the Career seems to have troubled him at this time.  Doubt had vanished from his universe for a space.  He wanted to dance along the corridors.  He felt curiously irresponsible and threw up an unpleasant sort of humour that pleased nobody.  He wished Miss Heydinger many happy returns of the day, apropos of nothing, and he threw a bun across the refreshment room at Smithers and hit one of the Art School officials.