The White Room by Fergus Hume

Arnold Calvert occupied rooms in Bloomsbury; pleasant old rooms in a house which had been fashioned in Georgian times. It stood in a quiet street undisturbed by the noise of traffic or the shrieking of children at play. Even organ-grinders rarely came that way, as the neighbourhood was not remunerative. Consequently the house was mostly occupied by people of delicate health who disliked noise. Mrs. Varney, the landlady, was a motherly old person with rather a hard eye. At one time she had been on the stage, and traces of that period appeared in her deliberate movements and slow voice. She always seemed as though she were reciting Shakespeare with appropriate gestures, although she had played but minor parts in the dramas of the bard.

Arnold was Mrs. Varney's pet lodger. As he was on the stage she frequently gave him the benefit of her advice, and Calvert always received her stale instruction with good humour and attention. This obedience made her love him, and he benefited by having his rooms better looked after and his food better cooked than any of the other lodgers. Calvert had two rooms on the second floor, a bedroom and a pleasant sitting-room, the window of which afforded a view round the corner of the square out of which the street led. It was an oak-panelled room with a painted ceiling, and furnished in very good taste. Arnold detested the frippery with which many young men of the present day cram their rooms, and his apartment was essentially masculine. The carpet and hangings were of dull red, the chairs and sofa were upholstered in leather, and on two sides of the room were dwarf book-cases containing a well-selected library.