Doctor Claudius by F. Marion Crawford

There were odours of Russian cigarettes in Mr. Horace Bellingham's room, and two smokers were industriously adding to the fragrant cloud. One was the owner of the dwelling himself, and the other was Claudius. He sat upon the sofa that stood between the two windows of the room, which was on the ground floor, and looked out on the street. The walls were covered with pictures wherever they were not covered with books, and there was not an available nook or corner unfilled with scraps of bric-a-brac, photographs, odds and ends of reminiscence, and all manner of things characteristic to the denizen of the apartment.

The furniture was evidently calculated more for comfort than display, and if there was an air of luxury pervading the bachelor's quiet _rez-de-chaussee_, it was due to the rare volumes on the shelves and the good pictures on the walls, rather than to the silk or satin of the high-art upholsterer, or the gilding and tile work of the modern decorator, who ravages upon beauty as a fungus upon a fruit tree. Whatever there was in Mr. Bellingham's rooms was good; much of it was unique, and the whole was harmonious. Rare editions were bound by famous binders, and if the twopenny-halfpenny productions of some little would-be modern poet, resplendent with vellum and aesthetic greenliness of paper, occasionally found their way to the table, they never travelled as far as the shelves. Mr. Bellingham had fools enough about him to absorb his spare trash.