The apartment in which the three bachelors were keeping a meditative silence, was large, square, high, on the first floor back, commanding an ample prospect of neglected rear yards, and all the strange things that are usually huddled into those strictly private domains.  The furniture of the room was rich and substantial, but not too good to be used.  The chairs were none of those frail, slippery structures of horsehair and mahogany so inhospitably cold to the touch; but they were oak, high backed, deep, long armed, softly but stoutly cushioned with leather, and yawned to receive nodding tenants and send them comfortably to sleep amid the fragrant clouds of the after-dinner pipe or cigar.

At one end of the room was Marcus Wilkeson’s library, consisting of about five hundred volumes, of poems, novels, travels by land and sea, histories, and biographies, which the owner dogmatically held to be all the books in the world worth reading.  The admission of a new book to this select company of standard worthies, Mr. Wilkeson was vain enough to regard as a high compliment to the author, and as a final settlement of any disputes which might have been abroad as to its merits.

On another side of the room was a grand piano, open, and covered with the latest music, and sometimes played on in a surprisingly graceful manner by the fat fingers of Matthew Maltboy.  On the walls hung some pictures, that were not unpleasant to look at.  There were two portraits of danseuses, with little gauzy wings, and wands tipped with magic stars; one large, full-faced likeness of a pet actress, taken in just the right attitude to show the rounding shoulders, the lightly poised head, and the heavy hair, to the best advantage; some charming French prints, among them “Niobe and her Daughters” and “Di Vernon;” and a half dozen pictures of the fine old English stage-coach days.  Over the fireplace were suspended several pairs of boxing gloves, garnishing the picture of a tall fellow in fighting attitude, whose prodigious muscles were only a little smaller than those of all the saints and angels of all the accredited masterpieces of ancient art.  A pair of foils and masks, neatly arranged over each corner of the mantelpiece, completed the decorations of the room.

The three bachelors had gone into housekeeping by way of experiment, as a relief from the tedium and oppression of hotels and boarding houses, and as an escape from female society, which was beginning to pall even upon the huge appetite of Matthew Maltboy.

But two weeks of this self-imposed exile—­with no female society but Miss Philomela Wilkeson, and Mash, the cook—­proved rather too much for Matthew’s fortitude.  He yawned audibly.

“I understand you,” said Marcus; “you are sick of this.”

“Well—­hum—­it’s a little prosy at times.”  Maltboy yawned again.

“Incorrigible monster!” cried Marcus.  “What shall we do with him, Top?”

The person addressed swung back the rebellious cowlick from his forehead, as if to clear his thinking faculties from a load while he considered the grave question.  “Do with him?  Do with him?  Oh!  I’ll tell you.”  Here the speaker’s eyes flashed with the light of a great discovery.  “Tether him like a horse, with a certain limited area to feed in.  D’ye see?  D’ye see?”