Craven and Son.
In fact, the Uninhabited House--for uninhabited it usually was, whether
anyone was answerable for the rent or not--finally became an object of
as keen interest to all Mr. Craven's clerks as it became a source of
annoyance to him.
So the beam goes up and down. While Mr. Craven pooh-poohed the
complaints of tenants, and laughed at the idea of a man being afraid of
a ghost, we did not laugh, but swore. When, however, Mr. Craven began to
look serious about the matter, and hoped some evil-disposed persons were
not trying to keep the place tenantless, our interest in the old house
became absorbing. And as our interest in the residence grew, so,
likewise, did our appreciation of Miss Blake.
We missed her when she went abroad--which she always did the day a fresh
agreement was signed--and we welcomed her return to England and our
offices with effusion. Safely I can say no millionaire ever received
such an ovation as fell to the lot of Miss Blake when, after a foreign
tour, she returned to those lodgings near Brunswick Square, which her
residence ought, I think, to have rendered classic.
She never lost an hour in coming to us. With the dust of travel upon
her, with the heat and burden of quarrels with railway porters, and
encounters with cabmen, visible to anyone who chose to read the signs
of the times, Miss Blake came pounding up our stairs, wanting to see
Mr.
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