THE MAN WHO KNEW
much more bearable than I expected—and then one day I found my mother."
"You found your mother?" said Saul Arthur Mann, a light dawning upon him.
"Your persistent search of the little house in Silvers Rents produced nothing," he smiled. "Had you taken the bamboo ladder and crossed the yard at the back of the house into another yard, then through the door, you would have come to Number 16 Royston Court, and you would have been considerably surprised to find an interior much more luxurious than you would have expected in that quarter. In Royston Court they spoke of Number 16 as 'the house with the nurses' because there were always three nurses on duty, and nobody ever saw the inside of the house but themselves. There you would have found my mother, bedridden, and, indeed, so ill that the doctors who saw her would not allow her to be moved from the house.
"I furnished this hovel piece by piece, generally at night, because I did not want to
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