Seventeen-year-old Billy Weaver has travelled by train from London to Bath on business. When he arrives at the Bath train station it is nighttime and very cold. His boss has instructed him to find his own lodgings, so he asks the porter if there is a cheap place to stay nearby. The porter recommends an inn called The Bell and Dragon, a quarter mile down the road. Billy sets out walking in that direction, feeling good. He is walking briskly and thinks to himself that briskness is the key to success in business, since all of the big shots in his company are so incredibly brisk themselves.

The street Billy is walking down is wide and lined with houses on each side, all exactly alike. He observes that these homes were once expensive but have become a bit rundown due to neglect. In the window of one of these houses, Billy notices a sign that says BED AND BREAKFAST next to a vase of yellow chrysanthemums. He approaches the house and peers inside the window. There he sees a fire on the hearth and a dachshund curled up sleeping on the carpet. It is a cozy living room, with comfortable furniture, a baby grand piano, and a parrot in a cage. Billy takes the presence of animals as a good sign and thinks this might be a more comfortable place to stay than The Bell and Dragon. But the more Billy considers it, the more he thinks The Bell and Dragon would suit him more. He has never stayed at a boarding house and is a little frightened of them. He worries about strange smells and the quality of food. On the other hand, at The Bell and Dragon there will be people to talk to and games in the evenings and it will likely be a bit cheaper. 

Billy decides to continue on to the inn and turns to go, but something stops him. For some unknown reason, he cannot look away from the sign in the window. He keeps reading BED AND BREAKFAST over and over again and feels oddly compelled to stay. Without knowing exactly why, Billy finds himself climbing the steps to the home and ringing the doorbell. Immediately, before Billy even takes his finger off the doorbell, the front door swings open and the landlady appears in the doorway. She appears to be in her late 40s or early 50s. The woman smiles warmly at Billy and invites him in. Despite his being startled by her sudden appearance and his other misgivings, Billy feels a strong desire to enter the house. The landlady encourages him to come in from the cold and tells him it is only five and sixpence for the night, including breakfast. It is an excellent rate and Billy requests a room. 

Billy steps inside and takes off his hat while the landlady helps him with his coat. Billy notices that there are no other hats or coats in the hall. The landlady explains that it’s only she and Billy in the house and that she rarely gets boarders. Billy expresses his surprise, and the landlady responds that she is very picky about applicants. Billy observes that the landlady seems a little crazy but decides it doesn’t matter because the place is so cheap. As she leads Billy up the stairs, the landlady explains that even though she is picky, she is always ready to welcome someone in who meets her specifications. She pauses on the stairs and says that Billy is just such a person. As she says this, she smiles at Billy and looks him up and down.

The landlady explains to Billy that the second floor is hers and the third floor is all his. As the landlady leads Billy to his room, she mistakenly calls him “Mr. Perkins” and Billy corrects her.  Once inside the room, the landlady tells Billy that she has left a hot water bottle between the neatly tucked bedsheets. Billy thanks her and the landlady says how glad she is he arrived, that she was getting worried. Billy tells her not to worry about him. The landlady offers Billy dinner, but Billy declines since he has an early morning and busy day ahead of him. Before exiting the room, the landlady asks Billy to at least come downstairs and sign the guestbook, as the law requires. Alone, Billy concludes the landlady is pretty crazy but harmless. He wonders whether she may have lost a son during the war and hasn’t gotten over it.

After Billy unpacks, he goes downstairs to the living room. The fire is burning, and the little dachshund is still curled up in front of it. The whole room is very cozy, and Billy counts himself lucky to have found such a nice place. He signs his name and address in the guestbook and looks at the only two other entries on the page. The names are Christopher Mulholland and Gregory Temple. Billy feels he recognizes these two names but can’t remember where he’s heard them before. The landlady enters the room carrying a tray of tea and biscuits. Billy says he recognizes the names in the guest book and asks if perhaps they were famous athletes or the like. The landlady responds that they were not famous, but they were extraordinarily handsome, just like Billy.

Billy looks at the guestbook again and points out that George Temple’s entry is over two years old, and Christopher Mulholland’s is a year older than that. The landlady shakes her head lamenting at how quickly the time goes. She gets Billy’s last name wrong again, this time calling him Mr. Wilkins, and Billy corrects her. Billy reflects more on the familiarity of the two names in the book, saying he has the feeling that they are connected in some way. The landlady brushes this off and invites Billy to sit on the sofa for tea.

As the landlady fusses with the tea and biscuits, Billy takes notice of her white hands and red fingernails. The names in the guestbook are still bothering him and he tries to think why they are so familiar. Suddenly, Billy remembers something and asks if Christopher Mulholland wasn’t the name of the Eton schoolboy who went missing. The landlady tells him that can’t be right because her Mr. Mulholland was a Cambridge undergraduate. She asks Billy if he’d like milk in his tea. She encourages Billy to come sit on the sofa. Billy sits and the landlady hands him his cup.

Billy begins to drink his tea. He notices the landlady watching him as he drinks and the two sit quietly for a few minutes. Billy catches an unusual scent coming from the landlady and wonders what it reminds him of. The landlady remarks that Mr. Mulholland loved tea and drank a lot of it. Billy is now certain that he has seen the names Mulholland and Temple in the headlines of the newspapers and asks the landlady if they’d left recently. The landlady says that they’re both still here, on the third floor, and asks Billy his age. When Billy replies that he is seventeen, the landlady excitedly exclaims that Mr. Mulholland was seventeen as well. She tells Billy that Mr. Mulholland was a bit shorter than Billy and his teeth weren’t as white and beautiful as Billy’s. Billy says his teeth are not as nice as they look, but the landlady ignores him and begins comparing Billy to George Temple as well. She says that Mr. Temple looked young for his age and that his skin was as smooth as a baby’s.

Billy feels a little uneasy and stares into the far corner of the room. He sees the parrot again and says aloud that he hadn’t noticed before that the bird is not alive, but a taxidermized one. He marvels at how well the taxidermy has been done and how alive the parrot looks. The landlady explains that she stuffed it herself and that she did the same to the dachshund. For the first time, Billy realizes that the dog hasn’t moved. He reaches out to touch the taxidermized animal and expresses his amazement at how well it is done. The landlady explains that she stuffs all her pets when they die.

The landlady offers Billy another cup of tea, but Billy declines. The tea has a bitter aftertaste, and he hasn’t enjoyed it. The landlady asks if Billy signed the guestbook. When Billy responds that he has, the landlady tells him that’s good because if she forgets his name later she can always check the book. She says she does the same with Mr. Mulholland and Mr. Temple. Billy asks if she has had guests besides the two men over the past three years. The landlady smiles at him and tells him that no, Billy is the only other guest she has had.