While he sat, with knitted brows, turning over some of the papers in front of him.

Singleton looked about.

Hitherto his life had been spent in comfortless and shabby English lodgings, in the sour steam of tropic swamps, and in galvanized iron factories that were filled all day with an intolerable heat.

As a result of this, his host's library impressed him.

It was spacious and furnished in excellent taste; a shaded silver lamp stood on the table, diffusing a restricted light that made the room look larger; a clear wood fire burned in the grate.