THE OLD LODGE 263 



on these occasions, the guests had time to look about 

 the two rooms that were visible to the ordinary visitor, 

 and it must be admitted that there was little that was 

 pleasing to the eye. The walls, so far as one could see 

 them, were covered with an ugly drab-coloured wall- 

 paper, the floors with threadbare carpets, and the 

 furniture lacked beauty. Everywhere were books, on 

 the tables and chairs, on the floor and in book-cases 

 about most of the walls. Piles of papers and bundles 

 of letters were on the top of the books, and one might 

 think that the disorder was complete, but the Professor 

 knew where everything was, and when some point arose, 

 which demanded a reference, as often happened, he went 

 unerringly to the right spot. One or two water-colours, 

 a few rather dingy portraits hung high on the wall, 

 and a beautiful drawing of a Gye-Falcon by Wolf 

 were all the pictures that the book-cases allowed. An 

 adventurous visitor who looked into the Professor's 

 bedroom would have seen a huge four-post bed, and if 

 he got so far as the spare bedroom, the " Cowshed " as 

 it was called — it was built on the site of the old cow- 

 house of the Master's Lodge — he would have received 

 an impression of a brilliant blue wall-paper and of little 

 else. It must be confessed that Newton had little or 

 no sense of the beautiful, at least as it appears to the 

 younger generation. 



Coming back to the inner room, where the coffee 

 was set out, one would find the Professor sitting in a 

 tolerably easy chair just inside the door : beside him a 

 table on which were a cup of tea, a blue porcelain jar 

 of tobacco, several pipes, a box of Russian cigarettes, 

 and a number of half-sheets of paper, of which he made 

 innumerable spills during the course of the evening. 

 He seldom used matches, and preferred to light his pipe 

 with a spill from the fire. This, for a heavy man with 



