“Very handsome indeed,” said Sir Charles, secretly disgusted at being invited to admire a photograph, such as house agents exhibit, of a vulgarly designed country house, merely because it had cost seventy-five thousand pounds.  The figures were actually written beneath the picture.

“This is the drawing-room, and this one of the best bedrooms.  In the right-hand corner of the mount you will see a note of the cost of the furniture, fittings, napery, and so forth.  They were of the most luxurious description.”

“Very interesting,” said Sir Charles, hardly disguising the irony of the comment.

“Here is a view—­this is the first of my own attempts—­of the apartment of one of the under servants.  It is comfortable and spacious, and solidly furnished.”

“So I perceive.”

“These are the stables.  Are they not handsome?”

“Palatial.  Quite palatial.”

“There is every luxury that a horse could desire, including plenty of valets to wait on him.  You are noting the figures, I hope.  There is the cost of the building and the expenditure per horse per annum.”

“I see.”

“Here is the exterior of a house.  What do you think of it?”

“It is rather picturesque in its dilapidation.”

“Picturesque!  Would you like to live in it?”

“No,” said Erskine.  “I don’t see anything very picturesque about it.  What induced you to photograph such a wretched old rookery?”

“Here is a view of the best room in it.  Photography gives you a fair idea of the broken flooring and patched windows, but you must imagine the dirt and the odor of the place.  Some of the stains are weather stains, others came from smoke and filth.  The landlord of the house holds it from a peer and lets it out in tenements.  Three families occupied that room when I photographed it.  You will see by the figures in the corner that it is more profitable to the landlord than an average house in Mayfair.  Here is the cellar, let to a family for one and sixpence a week, and considered a bargain.  The sun never shines there, of course.  I took it by artificial light.  You may add to the rent the cost of enough bad beer to make the tenant insensible to the filth of the place.  Beer is the chloroform that enables the laborer to endure the severe operation of living; that is why we can always assure one another over our wine that the rascal’s misery is due to his habit of drinking.  We are down on him for it, because, if he could bear his life without beer, we should save his beer-money—­get him for lower wages.  In short, we should be richer and he soberer.  Here is the yard; the arrangements are indescribable.  Seven of the inhabitants of that house had worked for years in my father’s mill.  That is, they had created a considerable part of the vast sums of money for drawing your attention to which you were disgusted with me just now.”

“Not at all,” said Sir Charles faintly.