This house is a most extraordinary place. It is an old
Congregational chapel with a gallery all round which has been made
into cubicles, scarcely one of which is ever empty or ever likely
to be empty so far as I can see! I should think it must be rather
like what the guest house of a monastery used to be like in the old
days before the Reformation. The ground floor of the chapel has
been turned into a gymnasium, and twice a week the apparatus is
cleared away and we have a dance. Every other evening it's used
furiously by Father Rowley's "boys." They're such a jolly lot, and
most of them splendid gymnasts. Quite a few have become
professional acrobats since they opened the gymnasium. The first
morning after my arrival I asked Father Rowley if he'd got anything
special for me to do and he told me to catalogue the books in his
library. Everybody laughed at this, and I thought at first that
some joke was intended, but when I got to his room I found it
really was in utter confusion with masses of books lying about
everywhere. So I set to work pretty hard and after about three days
I got them catalogued and in good order. When I told him I had
finished he looked very surprised, and a solemn visit of inspection
was ordered.
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