This
was, in fact, the parlour. The bed, by day, assumed the dignity of a
broad but saggy lounge, exceedingly comfortable if one was careful to
sit far enough forward to avoid slipping into its cavernous depths
from which there was no escape without assistance. Besides being the
parlour, it was also the library, the study-room, the dining-room and
reception hall. By night, it was the bed-chamber of Mr. Bingle.
At the beginning of the cold snap that arrived quite early in
December, it also became the sleeping place of Rutherford, Rosemary
and Harold, the tiniest of the children, who piled in with the
uncomplaining occupant and kept him awake three-fourths of the night
trying to determine whose legs were uncovered and whose were not. With
six exceedingly active little legs wriggling in as many different
directions in pitch darkness, it was no easy matter, you may be sure,
to decide whether any two belonged to the same individual, and when it
came to pass that three of them were exposed at the same time the
puzzle was indeed a difficult one.
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